More healthcare spending does not automatically mean better health.

Comment “Healthcare” and we’ll send you the full video. The RAND Health Insurance Experiment randomly assigned thousands of Americans to plans ranging from free care to substantial cost sharing. People with free or nearly free care used significantly more medical services. But for the average participant, that extra care produced little improvement across broad measures of health, although some poorer and sicker patients benefited. The lesson is important: when patients face no price at the point of care, utilization rises sharply, but additional spending may deliver diminishing returns. Insurance is valuable, especially against catastrophic expenses. Yet a system that insulates every routine decision from prices can encourage more consumption without producing proportionally better outcomes.