The Volokh Conspiracy - Medical Innovation:

I don't have the expertise to discuss the various health care reform proposals that are being bandied about, but I do know that it's important to ensure that whatever is implemented doesn't interfere with innovation.

Consider my own immediate family. I was born a month premature, a bit over three pounds, in my parents' bedroom after an extremely short (like 5 minutes) labor. I was rushed to the hospital, where I stayed for over a month in a "warmer". A decade or two earlier, I would have been a goner. Two and a half decades later, my cousin's son survived being born three months premature and weighing less than two pounds.

My sister fell through a grandfather clock when she was thirteen, causing severe nerve damage to her arm. The operation took twice as long as originally predicted, and she could have died. Instead, after the surgery and physical therapy, she was almost completely recovered. A decade or two earlier, she surely would have lost the use of her arm, and perhaps not made it through the surgery.

My mother was diagnosed with TTP, a blood disease, in the Fall of 1988. According to the medical articles I read at the time, TTP had something like a 20% survival rate in the 70s, and 65% when she got it, though she lucked into having the leading expert in the world as her hospital physician (after she was initially misdiagnosed by a local quack; my cousin, then a resident, managed to diagnose her over the phone and made her rush to the hospital, in the nick of time), and she (the physician) had more like a 75% survival rate for her patients. The first line treatment failed, but the second line treatment succeeded. A decade earlier, as I recall, doctors didn't even know about the second line treatment, and my mom would have died.

Oh, and you can add my wife, who not too long ago would have died due to complications in one of her pregnancies. Indeed, before the invention of ultrasounds, the doctors wouldn't have even known about the problem until it was way too late.

Given all this, it's not surprising that I get a bit antsy when I hear some politicians talk as if health care is a fixed good, and the only question is how to distribute it properly.

	[David Bernstein, May 18, 2009 at 11:18pm] Trackbacks Medical Innovation: I don't have the expertise to discuss the various health care reform proposals that are being bandied about, but I do know that it's important to ensure that whatever is implemented doesn't interfere with innovation. Consider my own immediate family. I was born a month premature, a bit over three pounds, in my parents' bedroom after an extremely short (like 5 minutes) labor. I was rushed to the hospital, where I stayed for over a month in a "warmer". A decade or two earlier, I would have been a goner. Two and a half decades later, my cousin's son survived being born three months premature and weighing less than two pounds. My sister fell through a grandfather clock when she was thirteen, causing severe nerve damage to her arm. The operation took twice as long as originally predicted, and she could have died. Instead, after the surgery and physical therapy, she was almost completely recovered. A decade or two earlier, she surely would have lost the use of her arm, and perhaps not made it through the surgery. My mother was diagnosed with TTP, a blood disease, in the Fall of 1988. According to the medical articles I read at the time, TTP had something like a 20% survival rate in the 70s, and 65% when she got it, though she lucked into having the leading expert in the world as her hospital physician (after she was initially misdiagnosed by a local quack; my cousin, then a resident, managed to diagnose her over the phone and made her rush to the hospital, in the nick of time), and she (the physician) had more like a 75% survival rate for her patients. The first line treatment failed, but the second line treatment succeeded. A decade earlier, as I recall, doctors didn't even know about the second line treatment, and my mom would have died. Oh, and you can add my wife, who not too long ago would have died due to complications in one of her pregnancies. Indeed, before the invention of ultrasounds, the doctors wouldn't have even known about the problem until it was way too late. Given all this, it's not surprising that I get a bit antsy when I hear some politicians talk as if health care is a fixed good, and the only question is how to distribute it properly.