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By the end of the century, medicine and healthcare will have changed so dramatically that both will bear little resemblance to what we see today.
The process of massive change is being driven by four unremitting forces: money, science, demographics and a rising concord of disgust at the way things are presently going.
Let's examine these in reverse order.
In an opinion survey (Harris, 1989), nearly one American in three (29 percent) agreed that "our healthcare system has so much wrong with it that we need to rebuild it completely."
In the same survey, only one person in 10 was satisfied with the way things are now. The majority of Americans agreed with this statement: "There are some good things in our healthcare system, but fundamental changes are needed to make it work better."
In December 1990, Barbara Ehrenreich, in a Time essay on "Our Healthcare Disgrace," said: "We can't go on like this." And she cited our infant-mortality rate as being higher than Singapore's; a life expectancy lower than Cuba's; and that 50 percent of inner-city infants and toddlers are not immunized.
AGING OF AMERICANS. About 33 million Americans are now beyond age 65. Twenty years from now, that number will have nearly doubled to 60 million. The sheer numbers of the elderly will impact on the whole spectrum of healthcare--bringing changes even if technology and medical costs should stand...