Info asymmetry is no big deal - they exist in every other industry.
Chambers 20 --- Professor, Department of Public Health, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Australia
Stephen, May 2020, “Why the Economic Aspects of Healthcare are not Unique,” NIH, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7328842/
The information asymmetry between purchasers and healthcare insurance providers, which contributes to moral hazard and adverse selection, also exists between patients and healthcare practitioners. Arrow identified the latter instance of information asymmetry as one of the key problems that differentiates the healthcare market from other markets. This aspect is hardly unique to healthcare and happens with goods as diverse as legal advice to automotive repairs. In healthcare, information asymmetry is usually framed as a lack of information on the patient’s behalf, which puts them in a disadvantaged position., However, information asymmetry is shared by both the patient and practitioner. Furthermore, with the growth of health information available on the Internet, patients’ increased health literacy and support groups for particular conditions, a patient may now be better informed about their condition than their doctor. As there is more information available now on treatment input and outcomes, due in large part to the breadth of content and global reach of the Internet, the consumer’s position can be strengthened, providing a basis for better decision-making. For example, people with chronic conditions who constitute a population that consumes a large proportion of healthcare resources, have increasingly more information about their health issues rather than less. Even Arrow has had cause to reconsider his position, conceding that contemporary improvements in the availability of health information may have helped to mitigate the consumer’s lack of information.