Uwe Reinhardt on Kenneth Arrow on Health Care

Uwe Reinhardt:

Health Care, Uncertainty and Morality: In last week’s post I discussed Kenneth Arrow’s exploration of whether special characteristics set health care apart from other commodities — whether it had a “moral dimension.”... Professor Arrow... concluded that virtually all the special features of the medical care industry — the role of nonprofit institutions; the expectation that physicians, although vendors of medical services, would always put the interests of their patients...