Alex Tabarrok finds evidence that supports more spending on health care.

It has been estimated, for example, that increases in life expectancy from reductions in mortality due to cardiovascular disease over 1970-1990 has been worth over $30 trillion dollars – yes, 30 trillion dollars (for this research see: book, papers, summary). A conservative estimate is that 1/3rd of these improvements in life expectancy were due to better medical technology. One third of the annual benefits is $500 billion – this is much more than total government spending on medical research (the budget of the entire NIH is around 25 billion).

For Discussion. Tabarrok says that on average spending on health research has been more productive than spending on treatment. Do you think that this is also true on the margin?