Opinion: Technology made healthcare expensive. Can it now control costs?

Technology has revolutionized medical care. Three-dimensional printers can create human valves and ears. Non-invasive heart surgeries have replaced operations that used to begin by cracking open a chest. Proton therapy is delivering higher doses of radiation targeted to cancer cells, while saving healthy tissue and organs. But all of this costs money — about $41 billion in research and development dollars, in 2012. According to an article in Forbes, research costs for medical care — especially drugs — reach astronomical amounts. Consider that about 95 percent of experimental medicines that are studied eventually fail.