This is a complex issue and calling this just a tactic to gain more money in billable services is simplifying the issue into the absurd.

Or maybe it's not about money but keeping benchmarks and/or one's personal or departmental statistics at an (unjustified) high level.

My girlfriend, a medical specialist in infectious diseases, gave me the following example: Surgeons go to great lengths to keep patients alive when they develop a (usually bacteria-related) infection after an operation. Sometimes, as a byeffect of the treatment, even organs (mostly the kidneys) take damage and become disfunctional.

However, they only put that much effort in for a certain number of days. Afterwards, the patients may die in peace. Why? Because after a certain period, the death is not connected to the operation in the statistics, and they get to keep their perfect 'people who have survived because of my surgical intervention' score.

A COBOL-savvy man suffers from a deadly disease and decides to go for cryonics, hoping they will find a cure in the future. A hundred years from now they wake him up. He's relieved and asks: "Thank god, you've found a cure." - "No", they tell him, "we're short of COBOL programmers."