#80 Planet Money: Your Doctor Is Like A Mechanic

Imagine two identical hospitals, side by side. One charges patients a little, and the other piles on the bills. Where do patients get better care? Researchers say that, overall, there's no connection between the intensity, quality or cost of treatment and how well patients fare.

That's one of the biggest challenges in fixing health care — patients, doctors and insurance companies aren't all playing with the same information. As patients visiting a doctor, most of us are like drivers taking a car to the mechanic. If we had the know-how, we'd fix it ourselves, but we don't and so we have to rely on someone else's judgment.

With appearances by Deborah Kimbell of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, Chana Joffe-Walt's mom, a sunglasses vendor in Manhattan, and mechanic Ari Cohen.