The past few decades have seen steadily rising healthcare costs. Part of this reflects the ageing USA population,part is the deveopment of new drugs and therapies.
I think we are about to see an actual drop in costs-as we develop remote diagnosis systems, and more precise drug therapies…along with reduced hospital stays (major operations are now done, with people leaving the hospital days (not weeks) later.
I also forsee that people will be able to self diagnose, leading to fewer doctpor visits (due to the advent of cheap blood sugar, blood pressure monitoring devices).
Will this phappen fast enough to reduce the enormous healthcare costs?
While some technologies or changes in the way things are done will lead to lower costs I still think that we wont see a major drop in healthcare expenditures.
Demand for health is without limits and as new technologies become available people will demand access to them.
Falling unit costs may not neccessarily lead to an equally large fall in total costs. When prices fall we often start for example using the drugs on larger patient populations where it previously was not cost-effective.