That?s triple the coverage per capita.

Yes, indeed. And *non-emergency* wait times in the US are shorter.

USians also are paying for that much greater number of MRI machines. Convenience has a cost. How much convenience, are you willing to pay for? There used to be a guy on the Fool board, who used the French system. He spoke about how the national health system monitored wait times for expensive facilities, and would only authorize a new facility, when wait time reached a certain point, to ensure expensive facilities were not underutilized.

fun with the net sifter:

Per‑capita MRI capacity
United States: ~30–35 MRI machines per million people, with over 12,000 scanners nationwide getmrifast.ca.

France: OECD data shows MRI units at around 39 per million Statista.

Canada: ~10 MRI machines per million people, with about 400 scanners nationwide

Annual MRI scan volumes
United States: ~41 million MRI procedures annually gitnux.org.

France: Cumulative 20 million MRI scans from 2015–2020 gitnux.org.

Canada: ~2.8 million MRI exams in 2021–2022

Utilization rate (per capita)
US: ~1 in 10 adults receives an MRI each year worldmetrics.org.

France: OECD 2022 data shows 125 MRI scans per 1,000 population gitnux.org.

Canada: ~2.8 million exams in 2021–2022 implies ~125 scans per 1,000 population as well, but with much longer wait times (10 weeks average)

So the French system has more machines, per capita, than the US, and performs more scans, per capita, than the US. Canada performs more scans per capita, than the US, with a third as many machines. Both the French, and Canadian, systems cost the citizens of those countries a LOT less than the US system costs we USians.

So, what is your takeaway?

Steve