Stoking the fire

Medill Watchdog:

Last Sunday, The Times’ Elisabeth Rosenthal had another in her continuing periodic, and generally excellent, examinations of the costs of health care. This article focused on the cost of devices to treat chronic diseases, including Type 1 diabetes.
 
 “Today, the routine care costs of many chronic illnesses eclipse that of acute care because new treatments that keep patients well have become a multibillion-dollar business opportunity for device and drug makers and medical providers,” Rosenthal wrote. The captive audience of people suffering from type 1 diabetes “has spawned lines of high-priced gadgets and disposable accouterments, borrowing business models from technology companies like Apple: Each pump and monitor requires the separate purchase of an array of items that are often brand and model specific. A steady stream of new models and updates often offer dubious improvement: colored pumps; talking, bilingual meters; sensors reporting minute-by-minute sugar readouts.”