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From Orson Scott Card:
I grew up in an era when “calling the doctor” meant that he’d come over to our house and stick an icy stethoscope on the chest of a sick kid while worried parents fretted in the background.
He’d tell our parents to give us orange-flavored chewable aspirins—which were delicious—and to have us drink lots of fluids. Maybe he’d suggest they rub our chests with Vicks Vap-O-Rub. Or give us cough syrup (boy, that codeine sure helped).
No waiting rooms—that only happened when we went to a specialist.
How did medical care become such a nightmare today?
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The first and greatest cause of the problem is that health care is astonishingly, fantastically better than it was in those days.
The reason so many people have to spent so much more money on prescription drugs is that fifty years ago there were no drugs to treat their condition. They just suffered or died.
Ditto with expensive surgeries, bone and joint replacements, and elaborate diagnosic procedures.
When there was nothing the doctors could do or prescribe, then from that point forward your treatment was free.
In fact, the main cost savings on health care in the old days was death. Dead people don’t require medical treatment. It’s the most effective method of keeping medical costs down.
It’s our very success in keeping people of marginal health alive that made our medical system vastly more expensive.
He also has excellent suggestions for improving the system.
