US Healthcare Costs?

When did healthcare costs in the US become a drag on the economy? I've done some searching and it looks like costs really started taking off in the 1980s but wanted to see about when that translated to a measurable effect. Basically I was wondering if Nixon had managed to get his Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan legislation passed at what point would you likely start to see a change in economic performance from our timeline. Thanks.
 
I guess the most common answer is that we focus on major intervention when the person is already sick, rather than good preventative care.

Although a couple of days ago I was reading another book by the author of The Black Swan, and he was saying that medical practice should be pretty cautious and conservative when a person is healthy, and then willing to take some more damn chances when a person is seriously sick. He said, most medical systems don't do this near enough.

The interesting thing, the U.S. system kind of does this by default! :p
 
I guess the most common answer is that we focus on major intervention when the person is already sick, rather than good preventative care.

I have a suspicion that this is why abortion is such a hot topic in the US but not elsewhere. I don't know but suspect that things like the pill, implants and other stuff that is cheap and easy in countries with universal healthcare is more difficult/expensive in the US leading to more cases where drastic intervention after the fact is needed.
 
I have a suspicion that this is why abortion is such a hot topic in the US but not elsewhere. I don't know but suspect that things like the pill, implants and other stuff that is cheap and easy in countries with universal healthcare is more difficult/expensive in the US leading to more cases where drastic intervention after the fact is needed.
Logically the stance on that seems ridiculous to me. If the would-be mother cannot afford birth control then she certainly can't afford to raise a child, so rather than just pay the cost of the birth control the taxpayers instead would wind up paying government assistance for years to take care of the mother and child.
 
I want people to have more real choices, including a young woman carrying a pregnancy and keeping the baby if that's her choice. And first and foremost, more real choices means more middle-class jobs.

POD: If Clinton had been able to pull this off? And if he had gotten understandable, noncomplicated health care as early as '93.
 
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Not enough staff, not enough beds, the growth in malpractice suits (the cost of malpractice insurance is insanely expensive), and the pharmaceutical cartels with medical monopolies are the reasons for costs rising. These are a few of the reasons why healthcare has become insanely expensive. I've worked in healthcare. The insanity of requiring several expensive tests to finally perform a procedure the physician knows he needs to do to cover his ass should insurance or lawyers question his actions as well as the growth in clerical staff to deal with the sheer insanity of paperwork now required does not help at all. There is also a consolidation of hospitals increasingly into a small group of corporate ownership determined to make profits in ways I won't go into here. Medicare and Medicaid also has forced the closure of numerous hospitals due to the government refusing full reimbursement for care they require. Just a few of my insights.
 
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