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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   28397 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 21, 2025

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Medical care in the 1950s was cheaper. It was easy to become a doctor and they were plentiful. The standards of care were incredibly low compared to 2025.

Let's get a magic wand that grants you inflation adjusted 1950s medical costs and 1950s medical outcomes. Would you wave the wand?

Basically everything that actually gives us longevity now was invented by 1950. Clean water, electricity, antibiotics, and vaccines. There have been some significant developments in childbirth, but obviously that part alone is not the cost driver. It is end of life care, subsidies to hypochondriacs and the poor, and maintenance treatments like lifelong blood pressure meds and dialysis.

This is so unbelievably wrong I don't even know where to begin

The sheer amount of surgical techniques, mechanical/robot assistance, and drug development alone. Not to mention computerization and millions of other improvements neither of us know about too.

How can you be so blatantly and confidently wrong?

It is end of life care

The stats on this are eye watering though

The sheer amount of surgical techniques, mechanical/robot assistance, and drug development alone. Not to mention computerization and millions of other improvements neither of us know about too.

I worked in medical device development early in my career. Its not that these are not very impressive technological innovations, it is that people were perfectly capable of living to their 80s in 1776, and the reasons so few did had largely been addressed by the 50s. Lots of development has been in surguries. I'd much rather have surgery now than in 1955.

Ill freely admit I am a bit biased, my work was in life saving pediatric implants, which is not nearly the size of the "relieve grandpa joe's pain a little bit" part of the industry.

But those are all still interventions that most people under 50 aren’t going to need. So people are still going to feel ripped off because they can’t see where the money is going.

It's thanks to said medical advances that most people can be confident of living well past 50, into their 60s, 70s or even 80s.

Focusing on the first fifty years of life where the need for intensive medical care isn't nearly as necessary is myopic.

Sure, but increasing lifespans for the already old is one metric among many.

US life expectancy at birth was already over 68 years in 1950.

Hence why I specified the 70s and 80s.

68 is awful in comparison, North Korea beats that today.

The same source (statista) gives 78 today. So no 80s. Though I don't know how accurate these tables are; they're by nature projections.

Taking those figures at face value, 50% of people die by the age of 78 (that's what life expectancy is, after all). I don't have actuarial tables at hand either, but that also implies that a significant fraction of the survivors then go on to make it to their 80s. Women also live longer on average.

Taking those figures at face value, 50% of people die by the age of 78 (that's what life expectancy is, after all). I don't have actuarial tables at hand, but that also implies that a significant fraction of the survivors then go on to make it to their 80s. Women also live longer on average.

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But it’s not a conscious thought process. Most people aren’t sitting down analyzing exactly what’s changed in the medical industry and where the new costs are going and finding the checkbook balances. They just know that they’re getting mostly the same procedures but it costs more.

I never claimed otherwise. People can be dumb and not think through after all. That's a failing, and not a justification for their views.

US cost-disease is in a league of its own, and I won't make strong claims about how much of it is due to the availability of more expensive treatment modalities as opposed to medical cartels, a captive market etc.

These hypothetical people might be unhappy with the ER bill from a broken toe, but they should be aware that they'll be much more grateful for therapies later down the line.

Totally agree with you.

I just think saying "medicine has barely improved since the 1950s" is ludicrously wrong and anyone saying that should be pointed at laughed at for being profoundly incorrect.

How much of the improved standards of care are, specifically, about giving the very aged and terminally ill just two more weeks?

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