This applies in some areas, but not others. It might apply in health care if your treatment gives people another 100 years of healthy life all in one fell swoop. But the actual history of medical research is that since the appetite for extra months of life and extra percentage points of cures is unlimited, we see costs rising rather than falling. The cost of a given medication should fall after it goes out of patent protection, for instance, but there is always (so far) some other medication or device that is (at least marginally and allegedly) better. This is the most fundamental problem with the US health care system: patients demand more health care regardless of the price—a cost they want someone else to bear.
This applies in some areas, but not others. It might apply in health care if your treatment gives people another 100 years of healthy life all in one fell swoop. But the actual history of medical research is that since the appetite for extra months of life and extra percentage points of cures is unlimited, we see costs rising rather than falling. The cost of a given medication should fall after it goes out of patent protection, for instance, but there is always (so far) some other medication or device that is (at least marginally and allegedly) better. This is the most fundamental problem with the US health care system: patients demand more health care regardless of the price—a cost they want someone else to bear.