"Not noticeably healther"


One real cost of government financed medicine

Overcoming Bias discusses a RAND Heath Insurance Experiment that ran from 1974 to 1982.

The bottom line is that thousands of people randomly given free medicine in the late 1970s consumed 30-40% more medical services, paid one more "restricted activity day" per year to deal with the medical system, but were not noticeably healthier!  So unless the marginal value of medicine has changed in the last thirty years, if you would not pay for medicine out of your own pocket, then don't bother to go when others offer to pay; on average such medicine is as likely to hurt as to help.

Odd how this study isn't mentioned in the push to socialize medicine in the United States.

Hat tip dispatches from TJICstan.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Tue - May 8, 2007 at 07:51 AM  Tag


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