Except for a few blockbuster interventions (antibiotics for bacterial infection, orthopedics, reading glasses), the expected return of many health care interventions is negative; they cost so much, and have the potential to do so much harm, for such uncertain good, that we're better off avoiding them. The only reason individual consumers subject themselves to so many negative-expected-value treatments is that they do not bear their full costs, sharing the financial part of them with their insurers.
http://www.amazon.com/Crisis-Abundance-Rethinking-Health-Car...
Except for a few blockbuster interventions (antibiotics for bacterial infection, orthopedics, reading glasses), the expected return of many health care interventions is negative; they cost so much, and have the potential to do so much harm, for such uncertain good, that we're better off avoiding them. The only reason individual consumers subject themselves to so many negative-expected-value treatments is that they do not bear their full costs, sharing the financial part of them with their insurers.