Reply #36: You know where that "excess capital" gets reinvested

[jmowreader]

In a lot of cases, it gets reinvested in the doctor's own practice. If Doctor Smith wants to keep up with Doctor Jones, he's got to have the shiny new diagnostic machine that just hit the market--because Siemens Diagnostic paid an advertising company $40 million to tell all his patients to "ask their doctor" about getting diagnosed on the 3393 Bone Density Tester (or whatever it is) and they all are. Now he's got one, and if he runs four thousand more patients through it at $750 each he might break even on the unit. Doctor Smith is an ophthalmologist.

As long as "great new medical advances" come with two-comma price tags, profit in the medical field is a necessary evil.