Opinion: Want to improve healthcare? Spend less on it

According to a new study of Medicaid recipients in Oregon, increased health-care spending has only a limited impact on improving people's health. This points to an underlying reality: Hospitals and doctors' surgeries may account for a considerable majority of health-care expenditures, but they aren't the main factors in health outcomes. That's true not only in the U.S. but around the world. The Oregon study suggested that expanding Medicaid had considerable benefits: Recipients got more health care and didn't suffer the impact of catastrophic health costs.