This is a similar fact in government. For instance in the UK with the NHS and other services, we often look at total spending and assume that spending has to stay at least constant in real terms or grow, when in reality you want some metric of spending per outcome.

Ideally you want spending to go down as we get more efficient, and up as we find new treatments that work (we often add cost effective treatment as well, but that should make everyone uncomfortable no matter what side you argue)