Why Does Health Care Cost So Much?

Dayton Daily News:

Health care not only has surpassed manufacturing as a job provider but it also is changing the makeup of the state’s most dominant companies.

Five of the 12 largest employers in Ohio are now health care systems, including Dayton-based Premier Health Partners, which ranked 12th with more than 14,000 workers.

Part of this is because of mergers making the health care companies bigger, but part of it is in the inherent labor inefficiency of the hospital system and competing hospitals within the metropolitan areas.  Health care doesn't strike me as a place where competition improves efficiency.  Only so many people are sick at any one time, and they will only go to one hospital at a time. Yet all the hospital groups build new facilities to serve the profitable clients in the suburbs, creating additional overhead and overcapacity.