Rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking ship
I was opposed to Obamacare when I read the actual legislation before it was passed by Congress. My concern was that it was not designed to reduce overall health care expenditures – it only redistributed costs between the insured.
Obamacare was analogous to rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship. Yes, the deck chairs were not in the right place but the priority was stopping the ship from sinking. The health care system in the USA costs too much while providing too little. The poor delivery situation is apparent from the below graph from USA, Inc (slide 111).
And on Thursday this week, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) released the USA’s mortality data for 2015, and in summary:
- Life expectancy for the U.S. population in 2015 was 78.8 years, a decrease of 0.1 year from 2014.
- The age-adjusted death rate increased 1.2% from 724.6 deaths per 100,000 standard population in 2014 to 733.1 in 2015.
- The 10 leading causes of death in 2015 remained the same as in 2014. Age-adjusted death rates increased for eight leading causes and decreased for one.
- The infant mortality rate of 589.5 infant deaths per 100,000 live births in 2015 was not significantly different from the 2014 rate.
- The 10 leading causes of infant death in 2015 remained the same as in 2014, although two causes exchanged ranks.
The USA health care ship is sinking with life expectancy falling – yah just cannot say with a straight face that the USA has the best system in the world.
Obamacare simply rearranged who paid the costs. The ill and the older worker paid less – and the new young wage earner was going to do the heavy lifting. Note the young historically drove consumer spending – but have been burdened not only with university debt and now Obamacare health care costs. Education 40 years ago was mostly was funded by state and local governments.
In any event, Obamacare promised lower costs. President Obama stated on 16 July 2012:
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