NEW IMAGING CENTER coming to Montgomery Regional Hospital:
Amid the contemporary furniture and earth-tone walls of the HCA Inc.-owned center, patients will find $3.2 million worth of new MRI and Cat scanners that can detect cancer earlier and perform less invasive tests for some forms of heart disease, said Montgomery Regional Chief Radiologist Dr. Michael Aronson.
Gone, too, will be the dreaded hospital gowns with their sometimes embarrassing gaps.
Frankly, I’ve always found the gowns liberating.
Overlooked in the rising clamor for funded-at-gunpoint healthcare is the basic reality that the cost of medical services, like the cost of gas or cornflakes, goes up as demand outpaces supply. Increasing the supply part of the equation is always a good thing. MRIs likely don’t move the needle much on aggregate measures like national life expectancy, so it isn’t surprising that they are often rationed (e.g., Canada’s infamous two-month wait-time) in situations where providers have no incentive to expand their services.