At one time, healthy lifestyles and fitness were encouraged by offering incentives for people who didn't drink or smoke. Fitness was supported by offering discount memberships to local gyms. Now it feels like healthy citizens are less of a priority, because they're not as profitable. After all, we're no longer patients, we're customers; and every successful business knows that big money customers are what sustains the business. People can be kept alive longer, but it's analogous to increasing battery life, because the industry can "drain" the elderly until their wealth is transferred to the industry that's kept them breathing. Quality of life isn't a factor, because $ can be extracted from people, even if they're barely sentient.....as long as they're breathing.
It would likely be very disheartening for you to know what our health-care industry looked like prior to the mid 1990s. I was hospitalized for a week in 1990, my son was born in 1992 and I had reconstructive surgery on my hand in 1994 and my out of pocket expenses for all of these medical procedures was zero, aside from some minimal, prescription co-pays. The big difference back then was the lack of billionaires infesting healthcare across the spectrum. Pharmaceuticals, insurance and hospitals are billionaire's $$$$ money machines.
Thanks for sharing. I understand how f-cked up this mess is and I don't see a path for improvement. It's more important than ever that we take care of our own health to the extent we can. Relying on the system is too unpredictable. 😢