[shubb]

Sorry, you seem to be suggesting that having insurance (access to non-emergency medical treatment) has no effect on life expectancy.

Which might be the case. You argue that Oregon showed that. Doesn't that paint medicine as a huge fraud, regardless who is paying for it?

[yummyfajitas]

No, it doesn't paint medicine as a huge fraud. For example, suppose people without insurance already do have access to non-emergency medical treatment. Then giving them insurance will not make them healthier - it will only make them wealthier.

So that's part of what happened - if you look at the data, both the control and treatment group did consume medicine. You don't need insurance to get treated. But medical consumption increased in the treatment group - it just didn't improve health. That suggests medicine has a point of diminishing returns, and people without insurance already consume enough to reach that point.

(Also, a caveat: the Oregon Experiment was too short to measure an effect on life expectancy. They measured several other proxy health measures instead.)