Social Econ Blog

A new study by the RAND Corporation finds that "Virtually every person in the United States is at risk of failing to receive needed care regardless of race, gender, income or insurance status." The authors document that Americans receive only 55 percent of recommended care. More surprisingly, "The authors found that insurance status had no real effect on quality. Insurance 'is not sufficient to assure appropriate use of services.'"

To me, this suggests that either the doctors think that people need more care then people themselves think that they need, or that people are unable to make appropriate health care choices on their own (e.g., they discount the future hyperbolically). If a behavioral problem explains things, then improving US health outcomes requires more than just improving access to care (i.e., providing better insurance).

Further, given that increased demand for expensive health services explains a large fraction of the growth in health care costs, I wonder how much more expensive health care would be if everyone were actually getting as much care as the doctors think we need?