And if you a heart attack in 1961, the treatment was “lie in bed and hope you don’t have another one.” And cancer? Maybe a round of very nasty chemo to get you another year, but then, farewell. Jobs were for the most part far duller and/or more dangerous than today. All that stuff we can do in seconds on a spreadsheet now had to be done manually on paper by a lot of people back then with a lot of checking and re-checking. Not too interesting. So while I would prefer much of the lifestyle of the 1960s, I’ll definitely take my 2017 job and health care.
The problem is that while your medical care may give you a very few brief years, in terms of eternity it is virtually non existent.
Well, if you want to compare 1961 and 2017, it all depends on your criteria. As you mention healthcare, healthcare today is light years ahead of where it was then.
So for healthcare, we would not want to go back to the old days.
I’ve had similar discussions with people, who can’t believe that anyone has nostalgia for the ‘50s, for example. Their criteria were that gays were in the closet, blacks faced Jim Crow laws and segregation, and women were discriminated against.
So we can all point to things about today, which we prefer to the past. And talk about some nice things about the past which are not part of life today.
At least in ‘61 you could get in to see a doctor.