Or so we’ve been told. Nicholas Anderson, a health economist in Salt Lake City who reviews medical technologies, writes to say:

Between Hayes, BCBS TEC, Up to Date and others, there are enough of us scientists/economists to evaluate the safety and efficacy of medical technologies. We could do it quicker and cheaper than the FDA with better results. All we see as a society are all the FDA approved devices. We never see all the devices that didn’t come to fruition because either the FDA didn’t approve them or the investment was just never made because the inventor/investor knew the FDA would be too costly. It’s the “broken window” in practice.