Two popular progressive prescriptions for lower cost and higher quality in health care are preventive care and evidence-based medicine. When confronted with the evidence that preventive care is often wasteful, they often retreat and say that clearly some expert panel would have to decide which types of preventive care make sense.
D.G. Martin enters the fray by citing one of the Left’s authorities on wasted care, UNC’s Nortin Hadler, in a recent column. According to Hadler, statin drugs, mammographies, and PSA exams are among the preventive treatments that waste money.
It must be repeated that screenings and preventive treatment do have benefits, even if the costs generally outweigh them. Unfortunately, expert panels tend to make sweeping judgments that preclude individual choices, and most studies that look at forgone treatment do not look at health outcomes as the RAND Health Insurance Experiment from 30 years ago did or as a recent study by Janet Currie. At some point, however, the Progressives will have to decide whether they value prevention or evidence. As for me, I value individuals.
