Imagine for a moment it's the mid 1800s.

We're walking down a long dimly lit corridor of a hospital in the US.

Those of beds line the walls of a large open room.

We step over a small puddle of water, probably from that leak in the ceiling.

And a few patients lie coughing, in tattered clothes.

For most Americans, this is the last place they want to come if they get sick.

A hospital was a place where poor people went to die.

Hospitals were, they were not high-tech places, by any means.

We didn't really know very much of the things that we know today about how disease happens,

how to keep infection from spreading, how to treat people surgically.

We didn't have the kind of knowledge we have today.

At the time, doctors are still giving patients mercury, toxic substance,

to treat things like constipation or syphilis and bloodletting to help balance the body.

People are treated in their own homes either by someone they know or a local doctor,

but they almost never step foot in a hospital, even for surgeries.

At this point, pretty much no one has indoor plumbing, phones, or cars.

The average life expectancy is around 40, and more than 30% of children don't make it to their fifth birthday.

The average American spends almost nothing on health care every year,

and the idea of health insurance or health care debt doesn't even exist yet.

But change is happening across society, and before long,

health care in the US will look radically different.

Two-thirds of all bankruptcies in the US are tied to medical debt.

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