Cost-Benefit Analysis

Lately I've been pondering the idea of cost-benefit in terms of medicine and research. We've been talking about healthcare and poverty and injustice in my medical anthropology class (love it!) and have been analyzing different systems of medicine. There is such this disparity in the United States between the rich and the poor, and many, many people somewhere in between with varying levels of income. Our medical system is great in that if you have some rare disease, or an extreme condition (trauma, preemie babies), then you are getting the best care no matter what the price (and the price is really steep). On the other hand, there are millions (MILLIONS) of people who do not have any type of healthcare, and the majority of them also live below the poverty line.
And I don't know what to think about this. I don't want to say, x person doesn't get treatment but y does, but that is what we are doing now in some ways, at a great expense to our medical system. We've also been talking about how power struggles and political decisions shape our culture and therefore our medicine, and I think these issues play a huge role in the way medicine is practiced and the quality of care that is available.

No matter how much education people get, if they can't actually apply the knowledge because of their circumstances, how much help is it? How much is this going to cost us? I've never been a business person but I've been wondering if what we are doing is effective. Do I want to have to be a part of practicing this system, and what does my ideal look like? Is this possible on a large scale? With people of all kinds of beliefs, including mine in God?

I've also wondered for a long time if the money that went into research and some really expensive innovative treatments could be better spent elsewhere, maybe in prevention and policy reform, and could thereby eliminate the need for the treatment? Personally, that's why I want to be more involved in the providing of medicine and not the development of medicine. I also don't want to get to that place where I feel like I'm overwhelmed by need, because every little thing makes a difference. We don't live in an (my) ideal world, and sometimes I don't know how to grapple with that either. I don't want it to sound like I'm ranting, because I'm not, I've just been processing these things that I really do care about. These are bigger issues than I've never thought about before, and they are challenging me and inspiring me to dig into issues and think deep things and post about it on here!