The Rand Health Insurance Study

Many observers believe that generous medical insurance is a major cause of the large increase over the past few decades in our per capita constant dollar expenditures for health care. According to this notion, patients use more medical services if their insurance pays the entire bill than if they are required to share in the cost of care at the time they receive services.This seems logical, but it was never really tested in a prospective, controlled clinical trial until the federal government contracted with the Rand Corporation over 10 years ago to begin a large-scale study of the relation . . .