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Ezra:

Moral hazard is a pretty simple idea: The less you bear the consequences of your actions, the more reckless you'll be. And it's often applied to health care: The less it costs, the more you'll consume. That's why conservatives tend to want you to pay for everything out of pocket, and see universal coverage plans as surefire ways to send costs skyrocketing. If you're paying more for care, you'll be able to afford less of it. But it's a bit bizarre of a theory.

Currently, if I want a bar of precious, precious gold, I have to pay a lot of money for it. If someone let me into Fort Knox and said the gold was on them, however, I'd take as much as I could possibly carry. I like gold! The more the better. That's not really the case with colonoscopies, or triple-bypasses. Now, you could make it so I can't afford colonoscopies, in which case I can't get them, but making it so I can have an unlimited number won't compel me to make them a weekly event.

Indeed, the reason people get medical care -- in particular expensive medical care -- is because their doctors tell them to. I have never in my life sat up in bed and thought, "huh, I should really get some laparoscopic surgery." If I get a surgery, it's because my doctor told me to. And if I can't afford it, I have to ignore his diagnosis.

For that reason, if you want to safely cut back on care patients buy, you need to get doctors to stop recommending so much wasted care.

I always love when conservatives pull out the moral hazard argument on spending. The US has by far the most expensive system health care system in the world. It is also the least universal. And yet somehow, by changing our system to be more universal, our costs, unlike those of the rest of the world, are somehow supposed to increase. It's akin to believing that gravity works differently here in the United States than it does elsewhere.

Ezra's final point is critical here:

But this idea that the way to better run medical care is to rejigger the financial incentives so patients have to ignore their doctor's advice is really quite bizarre.

Remember that idea the next time you get into a debate with someone about this. What those who argue for patient-imposed financial restraint are really proposing is not only that patients should be incentivized to ignore their doctor's advice, but that in so doing they will lower spending on health care over both the short and long term. And that, in the end, this will produce a healthier and more prosperous society.