> - the kind of health care being delivered - especially emphasis on high-tech treatment instead of prevention - also sounds plausible, but difficult to control withour taking draconian measures (e.g. denying service if it costs too much.)
One of the factoids I've seen floating around is that some huge percentage of the cost is incurred in the last months of life. This may be the sort of thing that makes sense when people still are likely to have a decade or two in them, but you have to wonder about heroic cancer treatment for people much older than 70, when you get to the point where something's gonna get you. There was an interesting book _How We Die_ that noted that autopsies of elderly people who died of one of stroke/cancer/heart disease suggested that they were on the verge of being taken down by one of the other causes in the triad.
-- Andy