---
title: "Timeline photos Does more medical care result in more health?"
date: 2023-06-17
source: facebook
type: Archer T. Ships added a new photo.
---

# Timeline photos Does more medical care result in more health?

*June 17, 2023 · Facebook*

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![](img/2023-06-17-fb-002-img01.webp){style="max-width:100%; margin:1em 0"}
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Does more medical care result in more health?\
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GMU econoomist Robin Hanson argues that the answer is \"No.\"\
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In the June 12, 2023 episode of the External Medicine Podcast, Daniel Belkin and Mitch Belkin interview Hanson about the relationship between healthcare spending and health outcomes.\
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Among other things, they discuss three, large scale, randomized controlled trials:\
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\* RAND health insurance experiment\
\* Oregon Health Insurance Experiment\
\* Karnataka Hospital Insurance Experiment\
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All three trials basically found that medical care has almost no effect on the health of the population as a whole. If medical care provides no net benefit, why do we spend so much on it? Hanson\'s position is that most healthcare spending is a signal to demonstrate to our friends and family how much we care about them, a thesis which he lays out in more detail in his book, The Elephant In the Brain.\
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[https://open.spotify.com/episode/1zo47UJnJF2XrEP89zAAq0](https://open.spotify.com/episode/1zo47UJnJF2XrEP89zAAq0){target="_blank"}\
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Hanson also offers up some reforms that these trial results imply in the 2007 Cato Unbound essay \"Cut Medicine in Half\"\
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[https://www.cato-unbound.org/2007/09/10/robin-hanson/cut-medicine-half/](https://www.cato-unbound.org/2007/09/10/robin-hanson/cut-medicine-half/){target="_blank"}\
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#archer_medicine\
#archer_podcasts
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