The Health Care Industry

[Max Sawicky]

. . . 
I appreciated Jim's, Tom's, and gcf's responses to my original question,
and I hope others will answer it too before it gets lost in the 
momentum of the thread: 

*Why* have costs spiralled upward so dramatically in the past 20
years? 
>>>>>

I agree w/Jim.  Advance of technology/practice/etc.,
in a system where expenses, after deductibles and
co-pays, are reimbursed by a third party with minimal
control of whether a service is provided or not.  HMO's
don't constrain this because when somebody needs something
they will not provide, they migrate into some part of the
system which does, such as Medicare.

mbs