A Delayed Healthy America

There’s a lag between policy changes and communal knowledge/action. For example, there’s a sociologically well understood gap in mortality and birth rates. Access to better medical technology and standards of living causing decreased mortality rates (IE, more people living longer). The gap is made by a being lagged by access to and use of birth control (“Wait, I don’t have to have 5 kids in order to have 4 survive to run the whole farm! I can just have 2! Both will survive and, with tech, we can still do well!”) decreasing the birth rate. This results in population booms.

note: *not* drawn by me, for once.

note: *not* drawn by me, for once.

A similarly-shaped delay is likely to happen in the new access to health care via reasonable insurance in America. People will be so caught up in the generations-held mentality of “just tough through it, not worth the cost of a medical visit” that they won’t go into much-needed (and now affordable!) checkups and treatments. This is a social and mental hurdle, no longer a policy or access one. Which means you have to do it yourself, and encourage the people around you do do the same. Which is to say, just go to the doctor. You can, now. Do it for Annie.

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