More health care is not better

What explains the large variation in health care costs across the country? You would expect that the regions with the highest health care expenditures have the sickest patients, or have the highest prevalence of chronic health conditions.

But you would be wrong. Health care expenditures are highest where health care supply is the highest. As the number of hospital beds, doctors, and medical technologies (”supply-limited health care”) increases, the use of these goods increases as well.

More in Clinical Correlations, the blog of NYU Internal Medicine.