More than 30 years ago when the cost of health care was much lower compared to the average wage of American workers. In the late 1980s, for example, the percent of GDP spent on health care was just over 10%. It’s nearly 20% today. Around that time a politically motivated attorney general began looking into the amount of charity care provided by nonprofit hospitals within the state to make sure hospitals were providing enough to justify their tax breaks. The investigation ultimately found hospitals in the state were providing enough charity care to avoid further investigation, but perhaps the question should have been why was the bar set so low?