Accidents Of History Created U.S. Health System : NPR

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If you want to understand how to fix today's health insurance system, you'd be smart to look first at how it was born. How did Americans end up with a system in which employers pay for our health insurance? After all, they don't pay for our groceries or our gas.

It turns out there never was any central logic at work. The evolution of the American health care system began in the 1920s, when choices boiled down to which crazy cure you preferred.

Dr. John Brinkley, for instance, was a huge hit in American radio with his health advice shows. For whatever problem folks had, Brinkley had one fabulous solution: transplant a goat gland into your body. He pitched it as being perfect for everything from dementia to impotence to flatulence. But if, somehow, a goat gland didn't cure your ills, you could always use Bonnore's Electro Magnetic Bathing Fluid or Clark Stanley's Snake Oil Liniment.

In that era, most medical care in the U.S. was basically medieval — a bunch of potions that did nothing. Luckily, though, they were cheap potions. Health care was a trivial part of the average person's annual budget. In 1900, the average American spent $5 a year on health care ($100 in today's money). No one had health insurance, because you don't need insurance for something that costs $5 a year.

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Accidents Of History Created U.S. Health System : NPR

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