Polls show that doctors are trusted by the public more than politicians, which means it’s hard for public policy to shape the healthcare system unless medical associations sign off on it.

It’s estimated that unneeded or unproven medical procedures cost us billions each year.

Significant procedures are sometimes not nearly as effective as you might think. “In 2002, the New England Journal of Medicine published a landmark study where they found that this very common knee operation worked no better than a sham procedure in which a surgeon merely pretended to operate,” Patashnik says.