Medical Empire

The medical industry had been a hugely profitable industry since ancient times.

Especially after entering modern society, the importance of the medical industry had grown ever greater, along with the interests tied to it.

And the more economically developed a region was, the higher the price of its medical services.

Take M Country, for example. Due to the existence of powerful medical interest groups, it was said that its medical expenses were so exorbitant that 800,000 middle-class families fell back into poverty every year because of an illness.

In technologically advanced M Country, treating an ordinary flu cost 2,000 M dollars.

Having a child required preparing 50,000 M dollars.

A minor surgery such as an appendectomy cost more than 8,000 M dollars.

M Country, which had always championed freedom and democracy, was surprisingly just as democratic and free when it came to medical services for the vast number of Common People with voting rights—the prices were high enough to easily knock the middle class down to the bottom rung.

Even so, M Country's medical standards still failed to convince other nations, because any random flu outbreak sweeping through M Country could take tens of thousands of Common People's lives.

As for some of Europe's old developed nations, their problems were not as severe as M Country's, but they still suffered from high costs.

Someone would surely object here: developed Western countries provided universal free healthcare. This was a benefit that Z Country's Common People could only envy. How could getting a minor illness cost several thousand M dollars?

So that had to be fake!

Indeed.

Free medical services did exist in developed Western countries, and every citizen could make an appointment and apply for them.

However, from making an appointment and applying to actually receiving free medical services generally took