Peter Orzsag writes,

McAllen’s per capita expenditures grew to nearly twice the national average – driven primarily by local norms that tend towards heavier use of discretionary services – such as diagnostic testing and surgical versus less invasive interventions – for which there are no clear clinical guidelines…

From what we can measure, it’s not better health. It is simply more care.

Hansonian medicine strikes again. Robin himself suggests that we might want to have government health care at the municipal level. That way, McAllen’s taxpayers would be confronted with McAllen’s costs.

Robin doesn’t understand that local knowledge is not the answer to excessive utilization of medical procedures with high costs and low benefits. Peter Orszag is going to solve the problem from Washington. By himself.