Star Wars fans wait outside the TCL Chinese Theater one week before the release of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” movie in Hollywood,
The final film in the epic Star Wars saga, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hit theaters this weekend and many of those fans are either yawning with disinterest or speculating on YouTube about just how bad the last installment in the 40-year-old series might be. The critics have panned the film in early reviews, with Rotten Tomatoes pegging the critical score at a meager 57%. What happened to Star Wars?
As a doctor, movie-lover and proud tech geek, I often see parallels between work and my other hobbies. In my last movie-themed article, Which Avengers Character Are You? I compared roles in the healthcare industry with the characters from this year’s biggest box office hit.
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When I consider Star Wars, especially what has happened to the franchise after the Disney acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2013, some stark comparisons to the U.S. healthcare system come to mind. The system is in many ways fragmented, bloated with administrative expenses and if we’re candid, mismanaged at the macro-level. Star Wars has followed a similar path since the new Disney trilogy was launched in 2015 that, in my view, accounts for many of the problems that the franchise is currently suffering from.
The Evolution of Star Wars Versus the Evolution of Healthcare
If we go back to the dawn of the Star Wars movie, Episode IV: A New Hope, you’ll find a much different production than the hundred million-dollar blockbusters that are now the norm. The first film debuted in 1977 with a clear and concise plot that was easy to follow and had just the right amount of action combined with substantial character development. Fans walked away from the movie feeling satisfied. Fast forward 11 movies and 42 years later, and you have a much different Star Wars. True, the underlying theme is the same, but now the iconic film series is packed with a multitude of characters (some important, many not), and a storyline that ping-pongs viewers between concrete plot development and over-the-top action sequences. Viewers may feel satisfied on the surface with all the glitz and fancy cinematography, but true fans of the series may feel that their underlying expectations remain unmet with a fragmented storyline and lackluster character development.
The healthcare of the 1970s was in many ways a launchpad for the system that we have now. The bill that laid the groundwork for what we now know as Medicare and Medicaid was starting to take shape, and President Richard Nixon unveiled the plan to require employers to offer health insurance to employees, while also providing subsidies to those who had trouble affording health costs. Just like in Episode IV: A New Hope the U.S. healthcare system made sense, it was clear and it appeared everyone’s needs were going to be met…
However similar to when things began to unravel for the Star Wars series, the spiral also began for healthcare. By the late 1990s (when Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was released — which is considered the most loathed film by Star Wars enthusiasts) national healthcare spending in the United States had skyrocketed and accounted for 12.1 percent of total GDP – the largest increase thus far in the history of healthcare – and solutions were being put on the backburner with the increased threat of terrorism and the second Iraq war creating more pressing concerns.
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When President Barack Obama took office in 2010, a divisive chapter in the history of American healthcare began to take shape (similar to the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which released in 2015 and marked the first Star Wars film released by Disney). The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was rolling out and it had the potential to reinvent U.S. healthcare. However, the ACA was met with heavy opposition, with some provisions even taken to the Supreme Court based on constitutionality.
The next decade was one in which political divisions and competing reimbursement models created an ever more convoluted and fragmented approach to healthcare in the United States. With more than 40 million adults experiencing a serious illness and the U.S. ranking the lowest among developed nations for healthcare, despite spending the most, the system seems past the point of repair. Similar to the newest Star Wars movie about to debut, there are so many entities involved in healthcare right now that it’s hard to keep track. As major tech companies move deeper into the industry, controversy grows over patient privacy and with the rapid rise of drug costs and high premiums, it’s easy for patients to feel lost, confused and no longer secure. Many walk away from a healthcare episode with their immediate needs met by technology or innovative health development – but with remaining underlying questions unanswered – similar to that of movie-goers watching the latest Star Wars films.
In the movie business, the focus should always be on the audience. Giving the audience a thrilling film that transported them to a galaxy “far, far away” is what made Star Wars successful in the first place. The analog in healthcare is a laser-focus on the patient. Delivering the best care possible is what made the U.S. healthcare system the envy of the world. With the potential re-thinking of the healthcare system in 2020, my hope is that we can regain that patient-focus by simply letting doctors do the work they love. And as for Star Wars, The Rise of Skywalker….smaller might be the future. After all, who doesn’t love the internet’s latest TV star — Baby Yoda?
Photo: Mark Ralston, Getty Images
Amit Phull is VP of Strategy & Insights at Doximity. He heads up the Medical Content Team and works on behavioral analytics and strategic partnerships. He is an emergency medicine physician at the San Francisco VA and part-time Emergency Medicine faculty at Northwestern.
