The medical profession transformed itself after World War II. New methods of diagnosis and treatment expanded the physician's healing powers enormously, and unprecedented social pressure was applied to assure that those new powers were exercised responsibly. Medicare and Medicaid programs initiated during the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson routinely extended good medical care to the poor and the elderly for the first time in history, and it cost more than even the most conservative planners imagined. Between 1950 and 1970 the medical workforce tripled to 3.9 million people, and national health-care expenditures increased sixfold to $71.6 billion per year.
Innovations in obstetrics, vascular surgery, neurosurgery, transplant surgery, and other medical fields made headlines, but the ability of physicians to perform new procedures did not mean they were available, because physicians' time was limited, and complicated medical procedures took time and money......
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