The Mona Lisa, the Louvre, and the American Healthcare Waiting Room
Written by Dr Nick on February 24, 2026
The Mona Lisa, the Louvre, and the American Healthcare Waiting Room
If you’ve ever tried to see the Mona Lisa in person, you know the feeling: a shuffling mass of humanity, phones held aloft like ritual offerings, security guards barking orders, and a vague sense that whatever you’re looking at cannot possibly justify this level of chaos. You finally glimpse her, tiny, distant, behind glass, and think, That’s it? I almost lost a kidney for this.
This is as close as you get to the Mona Lisa these days
Which is funny, because that same sentence works uncomfortably well for healthcare in the United States.
The Mona Lisa isn’t famous because she’s objectively the greatest painting ever made. She’s famous because we’ve all agreed she is. Centuries of hype, theft, mystery, and relentless marketing have turned a Renaissance portrait into a cultural choke point. Everyone must see it. Everyone believes they need access to it. And so the crowd grows, the experience degrades, and the institution shrugs. What do you want us to do? It’s the Mona Lisa.
American Healthcare is Our Mona Lisa
Welcome to American healthcare, where demand is infinite, supply is throttled, and the system survives on mythology. The myth here is “the best healthcare in the world.” People repeat it the way tourists whisper about Leonardo’s brushwork while being elbowed in the ribs by a stranger from Wisconsin. In theory, the U.S. healthcare system is dazzling. It is awash with cutting-edge technology, brilliant specialists and amazing training. We produce miracle drugs and the world lines up to buy them (at discounted prices mind you).
But in practice, it’s a lot like standing behind 800 people, craning your neck, hoping today is the day you finally get to see a doctor for more than seven minutes. The doctor, by the way, is exhausted, overbooked, and quietly looking up your symptoms on a computer that could be straight out of the Renaissance era
The Louvre knows the Mona Lisa is a disaster experience. They’ve rearranged rooms, built barriers, added signs, and hired more guards, but none of these things have fixed the core problem. Too many people. Too much hype. Too little access. So they (sorta) manage the chaos instead of solving it.
Sound familiar? American healthcare does the same thing. Instead of designing a system around actual human needs, it designs one around billing codes, insurance networks, and administrative gymnastics so complex they could qualify as performance art. The result is a system where people delay care, ration insulin, and start GoFundMe pages to help defray costs that would make visitors avoid our country for fear of falling ill and never being able to leave, thanks to impossible debt.
And just like the Mona Lisa crowd, everyone’s frustrated, but no one’s allowed to question the premise. You can’t say, “Maybe this painting shouldn’t be the center of the museum.” You can’t say, “Maybe healthcare shouldn’t bankrupt you for the privilege of surviving.” That’s heresy. That’s stepping out of line.
Here’s the darkest joke. Most people don’t even enjoy the Mona Lisa experience. They take the photo, check the box, and leave. American healthcare works the same way. You survive the appointment, maybe follow the treatments if you can afford them, survive the bill, survive the appeals process, and call it success.
Meanwhile, there are incredible paintings all over the Louvre that no one sees. Just to be clear, we did, and they were awesome like John Martin’s Pandemonium:
John Martin’s Pandemonium
And there are healthcare systems all over the world quietly delivering better outcomes with less spectacle, less suffering, and far fewer souvenir debt statements.
But sure. Keep the crowd moving. No stopping. You’ve seen enough.
