Photo: 2001 Charles Ledford/StretchPhotography.com
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by Michael Larsen '89 and Tracy Talbert
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The
evolution of health care in America through the eyes of
In 1965, the medical profession arguably was at its peak of power. No one looked over a physician's shoulder. Doctors controlled 80 cents of every dollar spent on health care, deciding who went into the hospital and for how long. Their authority and earning power merited the top tier in social ranking. Physicians lived by the Robin Hood rule: overcharge the rich to take care of the poor. Free-spending drugmakers exclusively pampered doctors, lavishing them with promotional trinkets, front-row event tickets and swanky restaurant meals. Today, the American Medical Association is embracing doctors' unions and agitating against medical insurers. The medical corporations that now control the purse strings are frequently accused of deferring to Wall Street profit expectations over medical ethics or community values. In a sort of inverse alchemy, HMOs that second-guess physicians' orders have turned healers into money managers. Yet doctors' salaries, along with their social standing, are plummeting. Now, the Robin Hood rule works in reverse: the uninsured pay more for services than those covered by health insurance. The mass media, crowded with brand-name drug advertising, is reaping the drug makers' profligacy. If the forces transforming health care seem enormously complex, their impact can be simply distilled through the lives of three physician alumni, each a generation removed from the other. Their arc spans the nostalgic simplicity of the post war era to the contentious contemporary fight for patients' rights... View entire story in printable form
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