4 ms·

Except the rich and poor spend pretty similarly in the US and elsewhere. The income elasticity > 1 occurs at a national level.... http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanso

by rcafdm 9y ago

Except the rich and poor spend pretty similarly in the US and elsewhere. The income elasticity > 1 occurs at a national level.... http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/EC496/SOURCES/LUXURY.PDF http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/EC496/SOURCES/LUXURY.PDF And the better data on price suggests US actually isn't unusually expensive for a high income country and so on and so forth. Much data points to higher volumes of health goods and services as we chase diminishing returns as a society.

akamaka 9y ago
I meant my comment about unlimited spending as an philosphical argument, not as a literal data point. And yes, the biggest problem in the US is unneccessary tests, procedures, drug consumption, etc., and the cause of that problem is a system which is built around maximizing revenue instead of maximizing public health.
- rcafdm 9y ago
  But if you look carefully you will find most of this behavior plays out similarly in those few countries with somewhat more comparable wealth (e.g., Norway). The issues that many people think of as being particularly "American" problems are problems that mostly have to do with our high material living conditions (as in, diminishing marginal utility attached to other forms of consumption and increasingly high values attached to human life). Overall health expenditures are increasing equally rapidly in these countries as a function of AIC, disposable income, etc and there is no evidence they are getting any more value for their money (having a healthier populations helps naive comparisons of life expectancy, IMR, etc a ton). Here are some papers that touch on some of these more fundamental theoretical issues: https://web.stanford.edu/~chadj/HallJones2007.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/~chadj/HallJones2007.pdf http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/showcare.pdf http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/showcare.pdf

by rcafdm 9y ago

akamaka 9y ago

I meant my comment about unlimited spending as an philosphical argument, not as a literal data point. And yes, the biggest problem in the US is unneccessary tests, procedures, drug consumption, etc., and the cause of that problem is a system which is built around maximizing revenue instead of maximizing public health.

rcafdm 9y ago
But if you look carefully you will find most of this behavior plays out similarly in those few countries with somewhat more comparable wealth (e.g., Norway). The issues that many people think of as being particularly "American" problems are problems that mostly have to do with our high material living conditions (as in, diminishing marginal utility attached to other forms of consumption and increasingly high values attached to human life). Overall health expenditures are increasing equally rapidly in these countries as a function of AIC, disposable income, etc and there is no evidence they are getting any more value for their money (having a healthier populations helps naive comparisons of life expectancy, IMR, etc a ton). Here are some papers that touch on some of these more fundamental theoretical issues: https://web.stanford.edu/~chadj/HallJones2007.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/~chadj/HallJones2007.pdf http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/showcare.pdf http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/showcare.pdf