Like all good zombies several posters are banned. The OP and at least one other poster are still active. At least one poster has had the celestial banning.
I got all the way to the post about Iraq before it occurred to me check the date of the posts. 
America is both a rich country, an unusually high-inequality one, and one with a lot of self induced lifestyle-related healthcare problems, as well as one without much state control of the healthcare sector. All that adds up to very high salaries for doctors (and relatively speaking for other medical professionals as well).
Sadly, it was OpalCat’s post that tipped me off.