Does Health Insurance Improve our Health?

I'm sure I'm not the first on the scene, but I was reading The Atlantic this morning--I'm still stuck in the hard-copy world--and found an interesting article by Megan McArdle.

McArdle questions an assumption that, so far as I know, no one else does: is health insurance good for us? McArdle's article is polemical, to be sure. But she points out something very important: the data on the benefits of health insurance are, well, shaky.

And there's even some surprising evidence against the efficacy of one of the most powerful insurer in the US--Medicare. McArdle quotes researchers at University of Michigan.

Medicare increases consumption of medical care and may modestly improve self-reported health but has no effect on mortality, at least in the short run.

To be honest, I'm not willing to throw health insurance and health care under the bus, even given problematic evidence for/ against it. But I am glad that someone is questioning mostly unexamined assumptions about health care.