Before government intervention and insurance company ripoffs, doctors used to accept cash and the payment was affordable.
I knew a doctor that had practiced since 1936. He hated the fact that by 1960 things had already gotten out of control. Regulation kept him from accepting chickens for payment, which he had done many time before. The IRS got involved and screwed up accounting. He went on and on about all the various government agencies that got between him and his patients.
I knew a doctor that had practiced since 1936. He hated the fact that by 1960 things had already gotten out of control. Regulation kept him from accepting chickens for payment, which he had done many time before.
Gonna' take a lot of chickens to pay for a modern hospital stay, and not just because of government regulation and insurance company manipulation; medicine just does a lot more than in 1936, or even 1960.
Consider the range of medical intervention available to say, someone is just had a stroke, and presents himself at the hospital in each of the two eras.
In 1960 about all they could do was put such a person in a bed - literally.
Today, you have several different types of imaging techniques to help with diagnosis, you have pharmaceutical interventions for some types of strokes and surgical interventions for others, you have extensive real-time monitoring of the patient's condition, as well as a host of other technological and clinical advances the can actually make a good deal of difference in the outcome.
I don't know how you would translate that level of care back into 1960 prices, but I'm pretty sure the result in 1960 dollars would've been major, major sticker shock for most consumers of the era's medical services.