Medicine Is About Caring Not Health

Medicine is mostly about showing that we care rather than producing health, evidenced by puzzles in the data: geographic areas that spend more on medicine or have more doctor visits are not healthier, and randomized experiments varying the price of medicine (so some consume more, some less) find no difference in health between the groups — meaning the bundle of medicine contains both helpful and harmful parts roughly canceling out, while strongly health-correlated factors like exercise and air quality attract little interest.