You're missing the part where people actively avoid going to the doctor unless they're super sick/injured because the doctor is too expensive, even with insurance. The paradigm of consumption of medical services has changed: the doctor will not permit you to visit them, and then not get referred for tests XYZ and drugs ABC; it would be negligent for the doctor to not provide the standard of care to the patient, and the standard of care is immensely expensive relative to yesteryear.

Was medical bankruptcy a thing in the 1970s?