Robin Hanson finds that many cancer screenings are basically useless. Ezra Klein chimes in:
[I]f you want to control health-care costs, you somehow need to convince, incentivize or otherwise conscript doctors into doing it for you. … [A]s long as doctors are telling scared and uncertain patients that they need to get screened, they’re getting screened. The moment they stop telling patients to get screened, screenings will plummet. In health care, doctors are really the relevant decision-makers. And right now, they don’t have the evidence to make good decisions nor the incentives to make cost-effective decisions.
Aaron Carroll, a physician, disagrees that doctors “don’t have the evidence to make good decisions”.
It’s a lot more complicated than that. Physicians are human beings, and just as susceptible to biases as you are. It’s no easier to change their minds, or their behavior, than anyone else’s.
The Dish 