The price of health
Oct 8, 2009 Gelt, Scientificus, Sisyphus
Over at Dean’s World Eric Rall is asking how exactly did the cost of medical care get so expensive beginning in the 1980’s?
I threw out this idea:
I’d say, yeah, an acceleration of the completely predictable outcome of the third-party-payer system, plus vastly enhanced technological capabilities. Thanks in part to the trial lawyers and in part to cultural factors, developing technology and the threat of liability for failure to utilize it made it more or less mandatory for doctors, at least in private practice, to max out on technological solutions — especially in diagnosis — utilizing techniques meant to solve the hardest problems. Also, the “average” medical technique is a lot less average as your population gets older and older and more and more medically complicated.
Makes sense, no?
