Earlier quoted context omitted.
The whole system is awe-inspiring. Have a medical emergency? We'll send a several-ton box on wheels speeding your way within minutes. If you're in a city, the traffic lights will turn red as the emergency vehicle approaches to make passing safer. Paramedics trained in evidence-based pre-hospital medicine will perform the interventions most likely to save you based on their field impression. And when you arrive at the…
And if you live in the US and don't have good medical insurance the entire thing might leave you bankrupt and homeless. The ingenuity of humanity is amazing, but we still seem to get in our own ways a lot.
Now, many countries have this problem solved – for now. As the population ages, the solutions may have to change everywhere.
What I find interesting is that the discussion is almost never framed to address the actual issue: the medical industry in the US simply overcharges with impunity. I was shocked to discover that labor (as in, doctors) isn't even the biggest line item in many (most?) medical bills. Hospitals and clinics will simply crank the bill sky high and then have you or the insurance try to haggle it back down, sometimes at a 3 or 4 digits percentage difference. It's insane. There's also zero transparency on pricing, so it is difficult to shop around even if you have the time.