All the low-hanging fruit of public health has already been obtained - clean water, low infant mortality, antibiotics, hygiene, etc. As more and more resources get invested in smaller and smaller problems, policy becomes more intrusive, yet tangible results diminish.
You see the same diminishing returns on investment in all sorts of elite fields. Hundreds of top-of-class lawyers devoting thousands of man hours to preventing the execution of Jon Joe Jefferson, the 82 IQ schizophrenic who ate his entire family.
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