Increased health care costs related to increased utilization

Gregg Easterbrook writes in his book The Progress Paradox:

"One reason so many American senior citizens are at this writing upset about the costs of prescription drugs is that those drugs have kept them alive long enough that they need more drugs.

Most of the rise in health care spending stems not from the prices of medical goods and services, most of which have been declining in real-dollar terms, but from increased utilization." p.11

So what's the alternative to the rising cost of health care? Ban direct consumer advertising, decrease the demand for drugs and other medical services. Pretty simple right? But is it ethical?

Easterbrook says,"The rising medical share of the GDP, often strangely denounced as 'waste', is surely money that cannot be spent on other things, but buys for America's citizenry ever longer lives with more vigor and less pain." p.11