The Profit Motive

The profit motive, in the case of Apple, is OK. Build really good hardware, charge a righteous price for it and see if people buy, especially if you can deliver the goods in a timely and efficient manner, something Apple does in spades. The other part of the Apple equation is the fact you have a choice. You can buy other hardware to do the same work. It might not be as nice as Apple in look and feel but no big deal because digital is digital and Windows' apps are every bit as good as Apple's when it comes to getting the job done, but what does one do when one has no choice, where the price point is determined by little or no competition and where obfuscation is the rule, rather then the exception as seen in the incendiary NY Times article titled Even Small Medical Advances Can Mean Big Jumps in Bills. 

“From a guy on the front lines, the improvements have been miraculous,” he said. “But the acquisition cost is very high, and the pricing dictates what treatment you get.”

Complication rates from diabetes in the United States are generally higher than in other developed countries. That is true even though the United States spends more per patient and per capita treating diabetes than elsewhere, said Ping Zhang, an economist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The high costs are taking their toll on public coffers, since 62 percent of that treatment money comes from government insurers. The cumulative outlays for treating Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes reached nearly $200 billion in 2012, or about 7 percent of America’s health care bill.

Expenditures could well double by 2030, according to estimates by the C.D.C., in large part because the number of Americans found to have diabetes has been increasing more than 50 percent every 10 years.

The reason for this price gouging abuse is, IMHO, the lack of transparency and real competition in medical, where closed, proprietary systems rule, where price points for office visits, hospital stays and surgery procedures are never disclosed beforehand and where patients, in many cases, are considered nothing but profit centers, able to be hosed price-wise when it comes to treating chronic illnesses like Type 1 diabetes. 

Change is coming, as seen in the BRT blurb titled Healthcare - Days of Future Past, because people will demand it, just as people demanded transparency and competition in tech when the web became real circa 1997. 

"And the beat goes on." - Robert E.