I realize that there are huge costs for those companies that manufacture medical equipment in the first place, especially in R&D activities. However, what determines a different price between, for example, an MRI machine (that can cost $3 million) and a Mammography machine (around $50k)?
These prices come from a quick Google search and may, therefore, have to be contextualized.
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Eli5: You are going to inflate a ball to play with your friends. You promise to spend all this work pumping the ball so your friends said they’ll give you a share of snacks they saved for lunch. You’re the only kid whose parents have a pump and you realize that you HAVE to make sure it’s inflated just enough where it’s hard enough to play with but soft enough where it doesn’t hurt to catch it or your friends will get mad at you. If your friends get mad you, your parents will stop letting you use the pump and another kid will have to ask their parents for a pump. You spend so much effort and are the only kid with a pump right now so all your friends say take however many snacks you want.
TLDR translation: Equipment manufactures need a license from the government to make sure their equipment isn’t risking patient lives. Because one fuck up takes away a license, there are very few companies that make equipment and so they have a monopoly on the equipment and the prices they charge. This is (supposedly) fair because there is a lot of expensive research involved to make sure the equipment is within regulation and doesn’t violate the license.
Edit: made more readable and easier to understand
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