#83 Planet Money: Too Much Information




Planet Money show

Summary: Doctors know plenty about you and your ailments, but what do you know about them?. Robert Krughoff, of Consumer Checkbook, has a new website, Patient Central, that uses detailed survey information obtained by actual patients to measure doctor performance. Sometimes a little bit of information can be too much. Naked Economist Charlie Wheelan says knowing our genetic makeup is good for us but bad for the insurance industry. Wheelan argues that as soon as our insurance pool is "corrupted" by this information, healthy people will begin to opt out and people likely to get sick forced to opt in at higher rates.