Jonathan Skinner on Health Care Costs, Technology, and Rising Mortality

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4.7 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 11 July 2016

⏱️ 63 minutes

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Summary

Technology and innovation usually mean higher quality and lower prices. Is health care different? Jonathan Skinner of Dartmouth College talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about how technology and innovation affect the cost and efficacy of health care. The conversation concludes with a discussion of the rise in mortality among middle-age white males--a surprising reversal of trend--that has been linked to use of opioid painkillers.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:09.3	I'm your host, Russ Roberts, of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:13.8	Our website is econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this podcast, and find
0:18.9	links and other information related to today's conversation.
0:22.0	You'll also find our archives where you can listen to every episode we've ever done going
0:26.1	back to 2006.
0:28.3	Our email address is mailadycontalk.org.
0:30.8	We'd love to hear from you.
0:34.4	Today is June 9, 2016, and my guest is Jonathan Skinner, the James O. Friedman Presidential
0:40.2	Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College.
0:43.2	He's written extensively on healthcare, which is our topic for today.
0:46.5	John, welcome to Econ Talk.
0:49.2	I'm delighted to be here.
0:50.8	So let's start with the paradox of healthcare technology.
0:54.8	Most, maybe all areas, technology lowers costs and improves quality, but in healthcare,
1:00.5	it seems to raise costs with uncertain effects on quality.
1:04.9	What do we know about that phenomenon?
1:07.8	That is a great question.
1:09.8	There is a clear difference in, I think, a lot of healthcare technology.
1:17.6	When, for example, health information technology came in that is always electronic record
1:23.9	keeping to keep track of whether the physician has actually done the right thing for their
1:29.8	patient and asked them all the right questions.
	...

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