healthcare consumers
The US spends far more on healthcare than other advanced countries, but we have worse health outcomes. Ideally, we could slow the growth of healthcare spending and improve outcomes by investing in prevention, creating incentives for providers to give high-value care, and eliminating care that’s unnecessary or harmful. While many of the efforts to achieve these goals involve arrangements between payers and providers, some also target consumers. However, as two recent pieces by Vox’s Sarah Kliff make clear, it’s hard to turn healthcare consumers into the kind of savvy shoppers who can contain…