Aetna CEO: Health Insurers Face Extinction

[Obama 2012 1,714]

Seems quite probable to me seeing that the cost of care has gone up for decades w/o the level of care ever keeping pace.

Technology. This is a huge cost factor for hospitals/doctor's offices.

It's amusing really. Because of the legal system we have here and sue happy lawyers, you'd be hard pressed to find a hospital that doesn't have brand new equipment every couple of years as diagnostic equipment becomes slightly better.

You can find practically brand new equipment in China that's been bought from the US because hospitals keep replacing their equipment every couple of years due to a "1%" better reading chance in fear of lawsuits. It's amazing.

I'm all for up-to-date technology, but it comes at a high cost. Imagine if you had to pay to replace your state-of-the-art gaming computer every year... Now multiply your cost there by 10 and then multiply that by X - amount depending on whether it's a doctor's office, a family practice, or a hospital..

That's only part of the problem as we all know, but I'm mostly addressing a good reason why costs shoot up. That technology does provide for better care in the long run, but much of it is unnecessary for the benefits received by being slightly more accurate (and only somtimes at that).