Should we expect the same treatment as professional athletes?
July 9th, 2009 | by Brian Schwartz |Writes Arnold Kling at EconLog (emphasis added):
Both the private health insurance industry and the music industry are operating business models that to me appear to be unsustainable and anachronistic. The music industry developed in a world of vinyl records. Our health insurance industry and Medicare developed in an environment in which most major diseases were untreatable and the most exotic diagnostic tool was the X-ray. Now, we do 50 million CT scans and 25 million MRIs per year. Now, people with cancer or heart disease expect to survive. As weekend athletes, we expect our knees, shoulders, and hips to be reconstructed by the same technologies that keep Tiger and A-Rod playing.
Should we? Could be buy an insurance policy that pays up to a certain amount, and save money to pay for the higher-quality service ourselves? I’m not sure what insurance policies currently cover in these types of cases, that is, procedures on knees, shoulders, and hips. I could imagine insurers offering different plans to cater to different consumer preferences.
tags: choice, medical technology and innovation, quality
