Weekly questions and answers: The Grossman Model (Question Due: Sep 7 Monday 9am, Answer Due: Sep 18 Friday)

To answer my first question, preventive care and treatment can both be modeled using the Grossman Model. If we continue with the model's primary idea (health can be treated as a depreciating stock), we can see that preventive measures would lessen the rate of depreciation and the probability of depreciation, whereas treatment can repair some of the drops that occur during the continuous depreciation of life. My second question is trickier to answer and could only be situationally based. Given the framework from the previous answer, preventive care may be beneficial and utility-maximizing for someone who is not currently ill, but if someone already is ill, then treatment would provide higher utility. In conclusion, we can definitely see differences between preventive care and treatment using the Grossman model, but valuing one more than the other depends entirely on a person's current medical status.