His administration was basically the Nixon administration without Nixon.

And its probably not a coincidence that it was also about that time that real salaries, corrected for inflation, stopped increasing and began the decline which has persisted to this day. It is also the time when the current “wealth gap” that is characteristic of today’s economic landscape began to really take off. As the society became more productive and wealthy, the benefits of that prosperity were hijacked and diverted to the upper income brackets and systematically denied to those who were actually doing the work.

The deterioration of our medical system is not coincidentally correlated with the overall economy and wealth distribution, it is caused by it.

I remember talking with him when the government decided to allow pharmaceutical ads in print and on television. He told me it was a huge mistake. That it would make costs skyrocket and profits soar. Patients would want medication they didn’t need (restless leg syndrome? Really?) and doctors would be pressured by the pharmaceutical companies reps (and personal profit) to give the patients what they wanted. The commercialization of medicine.

I never saw him happier than when he sold his practice and spent his days puttering around the garden. Young people would seek his advice about becoming a doctor and he’d tell them to seek another passion.

Now what happened to the US political and economic environment around 1980?

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