It's not that black and white. There's more at play than just charges. Things can be better and still shockingly corrupt, with extreme amounts of unjustified

It's not that black and white. There's more at play than just charges. Things can be better and still shockingly corrupt, with extreme amounts of unjustified overhead. Things are minimally better for any individual patient, while being extremely more expensive, and the insurance overhead has skyrocketed. The question is a little bit like responding to a complaint about industrialized agriculture's effects on the environment by saying "Would you rather eat sausage from 100 years ago or now?" It's not actually that relevant to the initial complaint, and it reads like it's trying to just terminate the conversation on a loophole. Things can be better and still also be filled with many problems, particularly modern problems that weren't relevant in the time period you're comparing to. To actually answer the question honestly, it depends on my condition. For the kind of thing I would typically see my GP for, including run-of-the-mill checkups, definitely one from 50 years ago. For any serious medical issues, modern (as long as I can convince the doctors that it's actually serious so they spend more than 30 seconds on investigation). As far as charges go, per-capita healthcare expenditure is now over 5 times as high as it was in 1980. Are we getting a 5-fold improvement in medical care? When I go to the doctor for anything more than a checkup, 90% of my time is spent waiting, and I spend twice as much time with RNs who repeatedly ask me the same questions, before a frazzled doctor comes in, asks a couple questions, then rushes out, maybe handing me a prescription for antibiotics regardless of what my concern is.