I was talking to a friend from Europe awhile back. He said they contain prices within their socialized system, by restricting the number of tests a person can have....in other words, if it's not necessary, you don't do the test. We waste so much money in this country doing unnecessary tests.

As an example, I was treating a trauma patient in the ER a few weeks ago.....he had a ruptured diaphragm, with herniation of intestinal contents into the pleaural cavity. The regular x-ray films showed this, and the treatment was surgery. BUT, standard procedure is to do an abdominal CT on a trauma victim. CT's are expensive. In this case, a CT was unnecessary, because wee were going to open the guy up anyways.
This happens too often. But, in a system like we have, without too many checks and balances, we get away with running unnecessary, expensive tests.