"Another thing that complicates things is that in health the incorporation of technology does not reduce the overall costs of labor or, what it does is increase the required number of specialists in addition to the direct costs of the new procedures."
even if this were so, and I am not convinced that it is, isn’t this largely due to the regulation of the practice of medicine and the licensing of medical assistants/technicians? As in, if the AMA didn’t have a legal monopoly on the issuance of these licenses (and/or licenses just were not required), there would be more schools that could accept more students to learn these techniques than the current system has capacity for (think of all the capable people turned away from the limited number of nursing schools) which would result in the reduced cost of labor (due to the increase in supply of labor)?
Which is also why I vehemently disagree with the last paragraph, which starts by saying the health industry in the US is capitalism; it is not even close. See FDA, AMA, licensing, insurance mandates, hospital mandates, pharmaceutical mandates, etc. etc.
If you’re looking to rebut this person’s remarks personally, check out the resources here: