I think that the question of "why do you think spending has been continually on the rise?" is a loaded question. There is not one simple answer to this question. I'm interested to see what the pie chart for a individuals medical cost looks like? How many slices would you see? I know that technology may play a role in the rise of cost, but is this something that we want to hinder. We know that health care cost are going up and they will continue to go up like other facets of our free market economy. I think the real question we should be asking is why health care cost are growing faster than our inflation rate. To answer this question, we would need to have a deeper understanding of all the intricate cost which are incurred from each patient. There are many individuals involved in health delivery and an increase at any level will have a positive correlation to every other level. Unfortunately, much of the burden for these increased costs is coming back directly to the business and families. People are having to make cuts in ways they have not had to in years. To give you an idea of how this is affecting the above mentioned parties I encourage all of you to take a quick look at the link I have provided below. It is the website for the National Coalition on Health Care. When you get a chance explore around the site. Take a look at all the tabs under facts about health care. Most of the data provided is very current and gives a good idea of what our nation is looking at in terms of health care at many levels from individuals and business to state and federal programs. http://www.nchc.org/facts/coverage.shtml