Please do your own research, especially on such an easily proven assertion. Failure to do so reflects poorly on you. Your claim was absolutely representative of the “peak oil” crowd, however… In the 1970s. Times have moved on, and oil production has NOT yet peaked.

Frank, “I’m not a Petroleum Engineer, but neither are you” Drackman

So if that premise is false, then everything that follows I might view as false as well.

We have seen brief periods where crude oil prices exceeded $150/barrel, gasoline priced jumped above $4.00 per gallon and the economic and behavioral changes were noticeable. Imagine a sustained period where prices were $6.00 or $8.00 per gallon, with no expectation of returning to any previous level. This country has already experienced one period where retail gasoline prices tripled, the oil embargo of 1973. That was an artificial and political shortage that resulted in nationwide shortages, gas lines and a market shift and ultimate collapse in the domestic automotive industry, the effects of which played out for over three decades, even after prices stabilized.

We have many assumptions about healthcare, particularly ones about access and quality. It seems an affront to many when access that is expected is denied or quality is less than we have come to expect. The unsaid notion is that care should be available and cost should be secondary. But these expectations, like many in our society, are resting on a foundation that assumes certain facts about resources, and that those resources are available if not to individuals then to the governments and organizations charged with the public welfare. There are, of course, places where these assumptions do not apply, but we regard such places as under-developed or worse, degraded.

Our wealth as a nation has been borne of many things, but one fact is that we enjoyed a long period or relative prosperity and a powerful currency and economy without the burden of having to repair war damage following WW2. That prosperity allowed us to build a society that enjoyed expansion with low-cost and high-quality fuels, and the form of that society was built with availability of cheap fuel as an assumption, in fact, as a requirement. Our cities developed not to accommodate oxcarts or even trams or railways, but to use inexpensively fueled personally-owned automobiles, and to provide people with individually-owned houses that were serviced by inexpensive electricity, natural gas and oil.

Where in that model does oil at $150 or $200 per barrel have a place? Nowhere, I’m afraid.

Healthcare, as we know it, cannot continue to deliver to our expectations without cheap fuel.

“Fact 3: There is no imminent technological solution for the impending oil shortage.”

You may not be aware that, due to new extraction techniques, The US has recently become the biggest producer of natural gas. Certainly it serves as an admirable substitute for oil in energy generation, which in health care is usually in the form of electrical power. Thus, one technological solution for the “impending oil shortage”. Second, atomic energy is also a viable and cheap form of power generation that could also provide power, another technological solution.

If we were serious about addressing oil shortages or oil prices, we would allow drilling in readily accessible areas, rather than pushing oil rigs to deeper and deeper water. The fact that we have not suggests that the oil shortages you warn of are simply not being taken seriously by those in charge of our national resources.

Finally, “Peak Oil” has been predicted since the 50s, with no evidence of it occurring yet. You would do better to make your argument without reference to a theory that has a long history of failure tied to it. The US military report you cite is at best controversial, and much disputed.

You have to start from yourself, change your mentality first. Everyone should be prepared for survival in oil-depleted world. When I go outside and look around I wonder why americans still not realize that?

There is only one way for this country to survive the crash – reduce your consumption rate 100 times!