One reason is law suits. There were few suits against gynecologists when the baby was not perfect. Today’s doctors pay 100,000 per year for malpractice insurance.
“Why Is the Cost of Living so Unaffordable?”
To force a once free and proud people into government subservience.
If you can’t keep up with the rat race, join the democRATS....
This is why wages are low, costs are high. They are looking for folks to capitulate into socialism.
Medical care is so expensive because of government regulation and anti market activity. It started badly going off the rails when FDR got a tax break for companies offering Health Insurance instead of allowing them to raise wages to attract skilled workers. That made insurance eventually ubiquitous. Add in all the government bureaucrats that are now in the loop and your medical dollar is supporting Insurance bureaucrats and government bureaucrats. Add in the insane tort system and the cost of malpractice insurance and the requirement to treat everyone who goes to an emergency room for free if they don’t want to pay or can’t pay and all the free medicine for illegal aliens etc and only a very small fraction of one’s medical care payment goes to medical care. Remove all that stuff and most insurance will cease to exist because people will find it easier and cheaper to pay for normal medical needs out of pocket while perhaps buying a catastrophic coverage policy for the possibility of health catastrophe. That is all why it is much cheaper to go offshore for major work that doesn’t have to be done immediately.
I do not know how much of the problem is the cartelization of healthcare, and the third party payer system that was started just a few years before the graph went into effect. It was started during WWII, and took a bit to become accepted nation wide.
I expect that it was not fully up to speed by 1952.
But, we also get extremely good health care. Lifespan is up significantly. People who get cancer live longer. There are more cures and better ones for everyday problems. We have CAT scans and expensive drugs.
There are only a couple of places that have healthcare equivalent to the United States, when you compare apples to apples. Canada does not make the grade, for example.
We have a large population that pays in nothing to the system, but get superb health care for free.
It is not an easy fix. The problem has been getting worse for 70 years.
Inflation is one part of the answer. Inflation is defined as too many dollars chasing too few goods. Since the 1960s, we’ve had every type of insurance and government program imaginable thrown at healthcare... and the costs keep going up. More and more dollars are not the answer to rising costs!
The same applies to education... scholarships, grants, loans, savings, etc!
Healthcare and education have seen the greatest influx of dollars and the greatest amount of inflation. It’s not a coincidence.
The pinworm example seems bogus. An over the counter pinworm cure is about ten bucks. No prescription neccesary and one dose is all one needs. Just dont ask how I know this.
hate it when students moan about the cost of college, and yet it is their own colleges which raise the prices, and pay their professors obscene amount of money
The author has a point, but comparing medical procedures from 1952 to today isn’t an apples to apples comparison.
Take the example of maternity costs. Many of those costs include prenatal care which is much more advanced now than in the 1950’s. If I had been pregnant in the 1950’s there is a very high chance that my son and I would both be dead now due to a complete placental previa. Our niece’s daughter would also be deceased as she had hydrocephalus.
Costs are higher, but we receive a higher level of care as a matter of routine.
Figure out how much of that is taxes, both explicit and hidden, and you will have your answer. It now takes two people to earn after tax what one once did, since half your income is going to taxes one way or another.
Its called the devaluing of the dollar.Its caused by fiat currency not based on anything.
Food, rent, gas, insurance, repairs, clothes, school supplies, etc., etc. Everything’s gone up except income (for most people).
A man leaving the grocery store today complained about the high cost for the few food items he purchased. Felt so sorry for him. He was obviously a worker, driving a company truck with gas cylinders. Looked tired. Guess he had to go home then and cook his supper after a long day at work.
Cost of living is too high. I wish people were not under quite as much stress as they are now. Progress has not been progress in many ways.
IMO technology, law suits, inflation & those that don’t pay are the prime reasons it costs more today than in 1952.
The technology in the labs, operating rooms, hospital rooms and where ever is just astounding compared to 1952. With the child birth example, today the technology not only tells what the sex is, but what birth defects or complications there might be.
I recently had stents put in, that never existed in 1952. People simply had their heart attacks and croaked. If not for modern medicine, I would be dead at least two times by now.
Modern medicine is expensive, but I believe we still have one of the best systems on earth. I am not on the complaining team.
1. Lawsuits.
2. Govt regulations.
3. Hospital administration/support/compliance/legal staff.
4. People using lots of resources for little benefit.
5. People using lots of resources and not paying anything for it.
Crooked politicians make living as unaffordable as possible, so the maximum number of people are dependent on the government.
Why Is the Cost of Living so Unaffordable?
Answer: Bankers, Wall Street and politicians
My parents had 2 cars and paid $43,000 for custom built 6 bedroom house by a creek and a pond. Made out of real wood and not scraps glued together along with thin sheet rock walls. My dad was the only that worked until my mom got a job in her 40’s. My grandparents home was solidly built and had oak stairs and built-ins.
Today that house is about $450,000. Any new construction and it is not as well built. My parents moved to Scottsdale, AZ in the early 1980’s and bought a house for about $100,000 with 3 bedrooms and found that the homes they looked at were cheaply constructed. Floors not level and sheet rock that you could push against and flex.
Today you can only rent as the prices are too high to own a home without having owned a previous one.
Now about the price of new cars....
That was not the case before Lyndon Johnson. I mark the change in America with the death of President Kennedy. Johnson got the ball rolling on the nanny state. Combined with the Vietnam war which helped fuel inflation, it was a perfect storm.
Before Johnson, you could go out with a 50 cent piece. At lunch you could buy a hamburger, coke, and still have money left over, enough for a candy bar, and maybe another coke, or magazine too.
Before Johnson, the majority of workers in a hospitals were doctors, nurses, orderlies—folks who worked directly with patients. Today they are in minority. It's like when a lion takes down a wildebeest. Pretty soon the vultures, crows, flies, maggots, worms, and hyenas show up to get their piece of the action.
Of course that also marks the time when they took the silver out of our money too. Another story (rant?) for another time.
But But But- for nearly 8 years under obama we were told there has been no cost of living increases and seniors, veterans and disabled people were denied COLA increases (While congress got theie very generous cost of living increases EVERY single year)