While Pete Buttigieg and other Democrats make mostly political arguments against Elizabeth Warren’s proposal to save money and save lives by covering everyone with Medicare, Americans are killing themselves faster with booze and opioids.
So says this new review of life expectancy statistics in the Journal of the American Medical Association:
Between 1959 and 2016, US life expectancy increased from 69.9 years to 78.9 years but declined for 3 consecutive years after 2014. The recent decrease in US life expectancy culminated a period of increasing cause-specific mortality among adults aged 25 to 64 years that began in the 1990s, ultimately producing an increase in all-cause mortality that began in 2010. During 2010-2017, midlife all-cause mortality rates increased from 328.5 deaths/100 000 to 348.2 deaths/100 000. By 2014, midlife mortality was increasing across all racial groups, caused by drug overdoses, alcohol abuse, suicides, and a diverse list of organ system diseases. The largest relative increases in midlife mortality rates occurred in New England (New Hampshire, 23.3%; Maine, 20.7%; Vermont, 19.9%) and the Ohio Valley (West Virginia, 23.0%; Ohio, 21.6%; Indiana, 14.8%; Kentucky, 14.7%). The increase in midlife mortality during 2010-2017 was associated with an estimated 33 307 excess US deaths, 32.8% of which occurred in 4 Ohio Valley states [Steven H. Woolf and Heidi Schoomaker, “Life Expectancy and Mortality Rates in the United States, 1959–2017,” JAMA, 2019.11.26].
Author and M.D. Steven Woolf sees economic factors behind some of the geographic concentration of declining life expectancy:
“It’s possible to blame some of this on the opioid epidemic,” Woolf said. “[But] it isn’t lost on us that these are the regions of the country that have been hit so hard by the economy — the Rust Belt, where manufacturing jobs have been lost and steel mills have closed.”
“Families and communities have been dealing with many years of economic strain,” he continued. “That strain itself could affect health in ways that don’t have to be limited to [cause] despair or unhealthy behaviors” [Anthony Rivas, “‘Deaths of Despair’: Opioid Overdoses, Alcohol Abuse and Suicide Driving Lower Life Expectancy in US,” ABC News, 2019.11.27].
The authors can’t help noticing that while this new decline in life expectancy extends across racial groups here in the U.S., it is unique to our great nation. What factor could set us so mortally apart from every other comparable nation?
From 1959 to 2010, life expectancy in the U.S. and in other wealthy countries around the world climbed. Then, in 2014, American life expectancy began to fall, while it continued to rise elsewhere.
…The JAMA report points out that death rates have climbed most for middle-age adults, who — unlike retirees and many children — are not usually covered by government-run health care services and thus have less access to affordable health care.
The researchers write that “countries with higher life expectancy outperform the United States in providing universal access to health care” and in “removing costs as a barrier to care.” In the U.S., by contrast, cost is a key barrier. A study published last year in The American Journal of Medicine found that of the nearly 10 million Americans given diagnoses of cancer between 2000 and 2012, 42% were forced to drain all of their assets in order to pay for care [Farhad Manjoo, “The American Health Care Industry Is Killing People,” New York Times via Salt Lake Tribune, 2019.12.06].
For 18 years, we’ve been spending unchecked trillions on guns, bombs, and foreign wars in response to one instance of terrorism that killed 3,000 people. That expenditure has arguably cost us 22 million jobs and $1.7 trillion in economic growth. Yet as more Americans (including babies: infant mortality is rising) die sooner, from entirely domestic causes that we could tackle without invading or shooting anybody, we can’t rally around a universal health care plan like the ones nations less wealthy than ours use to keep their people healthier and happier at far less expense.
Get your priorities in order, America. An unaffordable health care system is a bigger threat to our lives than terrorism. We need Medicare for All now, to save money and save lives.
Related Reading:
- Not satisfied with seeing worse results than other countries with sensible national health care systems, the Trump Administration may try to wreck the competition. UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is waving documents that indicate Trump will make access for U.S. Big Pharma to the U.K.’s National Health Service a condition of a U.S.–U.K. post-Brexit trade deal.
- Meanwhile, the Trump Administration and Big Pharma are fighting Speaker Pelosi’s plan to reduce our prescription drug costs by $345 billion over ten years. (Wait: what was that Mike Rounds said about the House not doing anything?)
So it must be the lack of free college that’s keeping everybody from having a PHD? While we can agree life’s stressors create disease you want to change the oil after you blew up the car. Too late. The best insurance is eating right with moderate exercise the American diet stinks much of that bottom chart can be attributed to that “America get your priorities in order and start eating right” there I fixed it. If Warren wasn’t trying to promise every nutty thing maybe this one would fly, but now it won’t. She tarnishes everything she touches prepare to lose to the most flawed incumbent in history.
Yes, our priorities are all messed up. Eating properly and maintaining fitness, as happy camper says, and assuring proper medical care for all, as Cory says, are not mutually exclusive. You should do both.
If we could enact Medicare for All, I’d be for it. I don’t see a path for it to be enacted. I want immediate improvement in health care, and Medicare for All won’t provide that. So, you have to get real about what programs you can enact to improve the situation, even if it doesn’t completely solve everyone’s problem.
A Medicare Buy-In, a public option for those who have no, unaffordable or inadequate health coverage might be enactable. You could start with the 50-65 age group.
Happy is not a doctor, though he is playing one on DFP. Maybe he stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
There are far to many people, not only the poors, with inadequate or non-existent health care to expect all these people to realize they may need a change of diet. Who among them has the resources to pay for healthier foods? Uncle Sam sure as heck ain’t going to do anything for them except keep women barefoot and pregnant with no medical care before or after the fetus is forced to be born.
MFI notes, “Happy is not a doctor, though he is playing one on DFP.” No, happy isn’t a doctor. He’s a contrarian who takes the other side of reasonable arguments just to get a rise out of thinking people. It’s his entertainment. AND … like the root of juvenile crime and adult drug use in SD, it comes down to this cause. “It’s just so damn boring to live in South Dakota. Anything to break the monotony.”
The growing poverty in the USA, coupled with lack of access to or knowledge about healthy living, all exacerbated by unattainable healthcare will kill people off quickly. That’s just what is happening.
The emotional and mental energy required to keep a roof over the family’s heads, food on the table and hold a job does not leave anything for focusing on healthy living. That’s scientific fact. Living in such a stressful situation takes actual points off one’s IQ. It’s devastating to the sufferer.
Without going too deep, there is one irrefutable fact
1. For the amount we spend per capita to support Medicare and Medicaid, other OECD countries cover their entire population.
BUT, Our healthcare system has adapted itself around these high administrative costs and technical requirements. Any move to reduce healthcare costs in a meaningful manner will result in a significant loss of jobs and a need to retrain a workforce.
Many young people and late career transitions choose healthcare because of the perceived stability and high pay relative to most industries – that could be hard to replicate since healthcare is an industry that so effectively shields the costs from the consumer.
The ACA (OBAMACARE) actually had a program that was designed to offset college expenses as a trade off to serving places like South Dakota and other poverty and rural settings. Thanks to Republicans, that was knocked in the head. By all means, keep voting republican, it keeps the undertakers in business…even when there are fewer and fewer pallbearers. The Rapid City Journal notes that South Dakota is now in a critical stage of doctor shortages for most of the state, excluding Sioux Falls and Rapid City. Hard to get doctors in such a hateful, backward state, but like Meth, we’re on it. Patients, heal thyself. Booyah!
“The passage of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) initiated the transformation of the United States healthcare system. The ACA fosters a preventive healthcare model that emphasizes primary care, funds community health initiatives, and promotes quality care. These changes increase the need for well-prepared healthcare professionals. Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs) who hold the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree are prepared to meet this increased need by providing leadership in community health centers, serving on interdisciplinary teams, and advocating for and directing future policy initiates. In this article, the authors consider how the ACA will serve as a prevention model, describe the role of DNP nurses as primary care providers, explain how preventive healthcare can be enhanced through the use of a primary care model, and address associated challenges related to increasing preventive care in our healthcare system. They also discuss DNP nurse leadership opportunities related to community-based programs and policy strategies to strengthen primary care delivery. The authors conclude by noting the professional and legal barriers that need to be removed before DNP nurses will be able to provide the care they have been prepared to offer.”http://ojin.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/TableofContents/Vol-19-2014/No2-May-2014/Articles-Previous-Topics/Affordable-Care-Act-Doctor-of-Nursing-Practice.html
Can’t have Medicare for all in places like South Dakota without Medical care. Besides, republicans are now concerned about how many flushes of his toilet it takes to finally flush Chubby’s crap down….hint, a lot.
One-third of the decrease in life expectancy is from 4 states; states disproportionately clobbered by the AI-shift in taking manufacturing jobs: Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia. https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2019-11-26/life-expectancy-shrinks-for-americas-working-age-adults
This is not about the ACA or Medicare for All. Rather it’s about despair. It’s about hopelessly. It’s about a broken economic system working for very few at the top. Recently polled Americans thought the US stock market was down, or level; when in fact its up over 20%. Why the difference from fact? — the stock market & GDP have no relevance in the vast majority of peoples lives.
AI roaring ahead to gobble up more repetitious, low-wage jobs as the 4th industrial revolution runs its course. We should not be Luddites trying to stop it. Yet it’s imperative we manage it or it will manage us, very roughly.
Read, “The War on Normal People”. Andrew will read it to you on Youtube or you can download it via pdf. Both cost you 7 hours, nothing more. Read the successful head of the labor unions, “Raising the Floor”. Andy Stern, a life-long labor union advocate recognized the unstoppable AI-trend and advocates human-centered capitalism to mitigate the rawest impacts of the dislocating of millions of jobs in the next decade.
Despair can be treated medically as well as economically, you need to treat both to make it all work and you cannot have either without healthcare for all and a future for all.
Americans do not understand labor unions any more than they understand healthcare, unless they are 65 and over, then they understand more about healthcare. Regarding organized labor, they are completely clueless and don’t want to be clued in because it might make them work. My, imagine someone making $35.00 and hour as a journeyman or $65.00 an hour as a Master electrician…Can’t have that, oh wait, you can…Or, you can sit around, drinking coffee, while collecting subsidies, and finding time to bitch and moan about how much the electrician costs to keep the place safely running.
In the meantime, we lose Democracy each day that Chubby and company are in office. So it looks like we need a dictatorship/king here in the US as that is the direction we are heading.
Apparently Willie Nelson is not smoking weed any more due to health effects, namely breathing problems.
He hasn’t stopped using marijuana…he just isn’t smoking it.
Promotion of smoking of any kind is incompatible with a push for better health care, regardless if that is upgrading Obamacare or pursuing Medicare for all. That simply adds to the costs that must be covered under any plan, and it reduces a candidate’s effectiveness on health care issues.
McTaggert’s focus on the “health effects” on Willie Nelson of marijuana seem to be revisiting his earlier contentions in a marijuana thread in which McTaggart repeatedly claimed adverse health effects of “second hand” marijuana smoke fully justified opposing legalization of recreational marijuana.
In addition to the problems with McTaggart’s argument that were set forth in the earlier thread, and need not be repeated here, McTaggart’s argument also is revealed as specious by yet another settled fact. The “second hand” smoke argument purports to justify the infliction of criminal punishment only on marijuana smokers despite their relatively minor alleged contribution to the alleged “second hand” smoke health problem. Here is a quick, off the top of the head, incomplete sampling of contributors to this “second hand” smoke that were not once mentioned in McTaggart’s arguments that “second hand” smoke is so “dangerous” to the population’s health that anyone involved with marijuana, including those who don’t smoke, should be subjected to criminal punishment.
– Cooks in backyard and community barbecues
– Priests and clergy who burn charcoal in thuribles during Catholic church services, funerals, weddings, etc
– Native Americans and others that burn sage in sweat lodges and other ceremonies
– Moms and dads that burn candles for cakes, ambiance and lighting
– celebrants discharging fireworks on special occasions
– People burning incense for spiritual and calming effects
– Cooks that prepare meat, fish and other substances in smokers
– Boy scouts, girl scouts, and campers that burn paper and wood or other substances in campfires
– People who burn fires to keep warm while ice-fishing
– Funeral directors and personnel who carry out cremations
While a general legalization of recreational marijuana is beyond the scope of this thread, the idea that “second hand” smoke from marijuana presents a unique enough health risk to justify criminalization, contrasted with so much other creation of “second hand” smoke that no one argues should be similarly punished, seems a type of false flag distraction promulgated by those who have found no rational public danger argument to support the continued criminalization of recreational marijuana participants.
The combustion products and their direct delivery to the lungs are the key issues. The different smokes have different chemicals in them, but you will still have an impact from common combustion products.
The problem with second-hand smoking is that you cannot avoid the exposure. This is particularly true of the smokers themselves, the children in the homes and cars of smokers, and people who would like to enjoy clean air in public spaces without said exposures.
Often with chemicals the health effect is related to a threshold. If you keep your exposure below a threshold, then you avoid the worst effects. If you avoid it altogether, you avoid the risk.
Thus we would have to look at the chemicals being distributed by each of your examples, and determine the threshold for a health effect from direct exposure of said chemicals to your lungs if not the exposure rate.
For example, we are seeing the result of untested inhalation of the vitamin E oils in some (but not all) THC vaping products. Thus to assert here that the inhalation of chemicals has no health impact is completely false.
If exposure to candles once a year falls below the threshold, then you have little to worry about. It may even be that annual exposure to ceremonial smoking does not exceed the thresholds for the chemicals and combustion products. You have made a claim and there is no data that I am aware of, so I don’t know.
But smokers of tobacco and marijuana products do not light up just once a year. That is a chronic exposure.
We’ll see if any of the candidates who promote the legalization of marijuana will propose that people pay more for their health care if they are a marijuana smoker, as we do for tobacco users.
Reduction in the amount of marijuana that is smoked would reduce the affiliated health effects. No smoking, no secondhand smoke issues.
And once again, smoke is a great delivery system for Radon. So one is getting a bonus exposure by smoking in a high Radon environment. If you do smoke, then you should absolutely mitigate your home for Radon.
Radon mitigation across income levels is not uniform. I would rather see more monies paid for that then for unnecessary health care costs from smoking.
Repeating and rehashing the same arguments that have been presented in the earlier thread adds nothing to the analysis on the issue I identified here. Anyone interested in reviewing the debunking of these old marijuana madness arguments can find them at:
https://dakotafreepress.com/2019/09/20/the-dope-is-in-pierre-says-new-bumper-sticker/
As for the arbitrariness of criminalizing one activity because of the alleged health effects of “second hand smoke” while ignoring, or perhaps even supporting, other activities that typically create as much or more “second hand” smoke as recreational marijuana use, McTaggart’s new comments identify nothing factual to justify the continued use of State power to criminally prosecute participants in one activity but none of the others.
Perhaps McTaggart’s most telling response is:
My claim is precisely that since there is no data to distinguish any theoretical danger to the public from recreational marijuana use, compared to other sources of second hand smoke, the rational simply is unsound. And “I don’t know” is an entirely inappropriate basis to treat anyone as a criminal.
Today’s Strib had an article about remote doctoring. Sanford hospital in Sioux Falls, whatever it’s called, has an agreement with hundreds of locations across the central Plains and Midwest, even into the Mountain states, to provide emergency medicine to nurses and EMTs.
There is a room of cubicles where MDs sit before the screen to advise and direct the locals in often life saving, or not, procedures. It was hailed as a great gift to remote locations and no doubt it is. But consider this: A doctor in SF is directing an EMT in west Kansas as he performs his first ever tracheotomy. If the EMT fails, his patient, probably a well known neighbor, will die.
This. Is. GOP. Big. Medicine. In 21st Century USA.
🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
Minnesota’s top medical person, forgot title, has approved medical marijuana for pain. That’s a new addition to the short list of approved conditions for weed prescriptions.
Now, if Mac can climb down from his marijuana bandwagon, let’s return to the topic of the crappy system of healthcare in the USA.
You forget all the evidence I presented from the CDC on health effects. That is highly convenient for you. Facts repeated are still facts.
You only care about decriminalization, not health effects for the public (or the smoker for that matter), nor whether what you are doing is actually destroying the democratic case for being the party of health care.
What you should be doing is pushing for decriminalization of marijuana that is not smoked, or at least have smokers pay more for their health care so we are not paying for their choices.
Debbo, you can deliver medical marijuana without smoking!
I am on an anti-smoking bandwagon. Second hand smoke kills people. And it is entirely avoidable.
In addition, if fewer people pass away due to illnesses from smoking and second-hand smoking, then they live longer, stay employed for longer, and contribute more to social security. You get a 2-for-1 to boost federal programs of interest.
Okay Mac, your message has been delivered. Now, as I was saying, health don’t care in the USA …….
If you don’t find ways to bend or flatten the cost curves for various things, such as pharmaceuticals or ER care, the long-term impacts of alcohol and smoking, running health care facilities, etc., then it really won’t matter whether you have ObamacarePlus, TrumpCare, or Medicare4All.
Smoking is bad. Tobacco is bad. The demon weed rots the brain and the lungs. Look at what happened to my good friend leather Lar.
The demon weed is bad. It is bad.
Just to clarify McTaggart, if I have posted a comment with incorrect or misleading information I hope you or someone can point out my error. Meanwhile, you and I have never met so have no basis to claim knowledge of my personal views. Thus, as for what you speculate that I care about, forget, remember, or “should be doing,” all that really is irrelevant to the point I presented.
You have identified no rational basis to distinguish any negative health effects from second hand marijuana smoke from negative heath effects of the multitude of other sources of second hand smoke. There were no such comparisons in your CDC study nor any other reference you cited that I recall.
Finally, I encourage you follow your own advice and at least push “for decriminalization of marijuana that is not smoked.” That would be a step closer to rational public policy.
And I encourage you to stop the smoke anywhere-any time version of legalizing marijuana. If you choose to emit the smoke, you own it.
I haven’t provided any evidence on the blog today that inhaling smoke directly from a vehicle tailpipe is harmful to your health. But I hope we can all be rational and exclude that kind of behavior too.
Second hand smoke kills people. And it is entirely avoidable.
You can ban forest fires? Interesting.
grudznick has banned all forest fires except those of which I approve. When the winds blow steady to the ESE, we can reduce the fuel load in our forest and send the soot to overcome the pig stinks by Sioux City municipality. They pay us to do it.
Aaaaaaaand Mac has hijacked another comment section with his dead horse. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
I would agree we cannot eliminate forest fires, but we can work to reduce them. How about addressing climate change, or not starting accidental fires during camping or playing with fireworks, etc.?
Likewise, we should work to reduce our smoking over time. Advocating for pro-smoking measures does not help in this regard.
The Supreme Court will hear a very important insurance case on December 10, 2019. When there is a working relationship between government and insurers, pretty easy to see why Medicare for all would work very well as will be argued on the 10th.
“Next week, on Dec. 10, the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in three cases that put health insurers in the awkward position that the insured know all too well—wrangling with a seemingly intractable and massive entity for promised funds.
The dispute stems from the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as “Obamacare.” The national health insurance initiative was created to cover millions of previously uninsured people, and the federal government sought to entice private insurers to participate by offering various risk-management measures to offset potential losses. One of these, the “risk-corridors program,” required the government to partially reimburse insurers if their costs rose unpredictably, while requiring companies to hand over part of any potential savings.
The program was managed in three-year cycles. During one cycle the insurers paid in about $480 million based on their savings. But in a subsequent three-year cycle, when many companies experienced severe losses, lawmakers made no appropriations for the risk-corridors program, leaving it unfunded for certain periods.
The insurers say that based on the formula in the ACA, the US owes them $12 billion. They sued, arguing that the statute implies a contract, which they relied upon, and that the government can’t just renege by failing to make money available to honor the deal.”
Funny how 28 billion can appear magically as bribe money but money for healthcare, difficult to get them to honor.
Debbo, smoking is a root cause of our health care costs. If Willie Nelson stopping his smoking doesn’t show that smoking marijuana has a health impact, nothing will.
We need to avoid the avoidable costs as much as we can, and make better long-term investments in the infrastructure of health care (its delivery, its education, its practices, its buildings, etc.).
Building a health care system (medicare for all, or obamacare plus, etc.) that is designed to overspend for avoidable medical costs is not the right approach.
Willie is 86 years old. Seems like his smoking reefer just made him sing better. Do you think you will live as long as Willie? Willie works a lot harder than you doc or me, for that matter. Here is his schedule, think you could keep up? https://www.viagogo.com/Concert-Tickets/Country-and-Folk/Willie-Nelson-Tickets
The root cause of healthcare costs is that there are too damn many of us. But republicans got an app for that and you can see it in South Dakota each and every day.
Apparently Willie Nelson is not smoking weed any more due to health effects, namely breathing problems.
He hasn’t stopped using marijuana…he just isn’t smoking it. Maybe not, Doc. From Snopes….
But while Nelson did give up smoking to preserve his health, there are more ways to consume marijuana than puffing on a joint. Nelson’s spokeswoman Elaine Schock clarified for the Associated Press that Nelson hasn’t stopped using pot. She also hinted that his statement about no longer smoking wasn’t exactly a hard-and-fast rule:
His spokeswoman, Elaine Schock, told The Associated Press in an email Wednesday that Nelson hasn’t given up cannabis, and she points out there are different ways to consume it.
“That said,” she said “Willie does what he wants, when he wants, when it comes to smoking.”
So jerry, he went in for physicals and his doctor told him to smoke more. No issues with respiratory illness. Got it. :^).
If health care is seen as a cost or a tax, then republicans won’t like it. If it seen as an investment, then there may be more buy-in.
Yes Mike, I said earlier that he has given up smoking, but not marijuana.
Weed is bad, people. grudznick is saving your life by driving your neighbors kids away from the Demon Weed. Saving your property too, since they won’t be whacked out on weed and the reefer madness won’t drive them into thieving your cars and molesting your grandchildren. Yes, the Demon Weed drives people to those things, for it is a fact those who toke up are more criminal than those same people when not toking up.
Willie is 86 doc, study that for a moment. Pick another lane, Willie done 86’d you. Mr. Grudznick sure seems to know a lot about weed and that makes me wonder why and how….hmmm
Mr. H, your blogging about Mr. Seiler, who is a swell enough fellow, seems broken. I would like to comment about how Mr. Seiler is going to have to carry all the elephants on his own back because of the incompetence of Ms. Hawks and others, but I cannot. Please check the blogging link, it seems broken. Thank you.
Mr. jerry, I have sat in a lawn chair on the beach and watched my good friend Lar, and another good friend by the name of Bill who is now taking big bucks from the state government, twist up a bunch of what they called fatties and doobies, and I saw them drool and go incapacitated. Lar turned into a leather zombie, and Bill’s hair went white overnight and then he sold out to the man. The Man, I tell you. Bill sold out to The Man! At least Lar keeps fighting, perhaps ineptly, banned from South Dakota as he is.
I will agree that being alive at 86 is better than being dead before 86. But some 86’s are better than others.
And industrial “second hand” smoke McT? How about diesel and gasoline engine exhaust fumes? Boat motors? Are there any studies you can read to support moving away from fossil fuel altogether based on health effects McT? Do you agree with them? Or do you only cherry pick science when it supports your biases, and reject it when it does not??? Seems to me, from the numerous discussions you get involved in here, that’s the case.
Yes, those are all problems due to the emission of particulate matter, if not the carbon they emit for climate change.
That is why I support making more of our electricity with clean nuclear energy to help renewables displace fossil fuels from the transportation sector.
Using nuclear energy to provide the process heat for releasing hydrogen from various feedstocks to help biofuels or to use in hydrogen fuel cells is also possible.
Cleaner air is tied to having better health outcomes. Period.
Quoted by CAH in the original post from the Journal of the American Medical Association: “Between 1959 and 2016, US life expectancy increased from 69.9 years to 78.9 years but declined for 3 consecutive years after 2014.”
When did Obamacare go into effect (sold to be the answer to cheaper, better health care): 2014
So are you implying causation Troy? Any support for that? Or is your comment just a cheap shot?
Debbo: Obamacare has only been in existence for 5 years but appears to be failing on several promises* so it wouldn’t surprise me if it is also part of the declining life expectancy. I’m just not going to buy the “obvious solution” from the people who sold Obamacare but are now throwing it under the bus for a “new obvious solution.”
*Promise of:
1) Cheaper Premiums: Oops.
2) Less uninsured: Oops
3) Health Care Cost Containment: Oops
So in answer to your initial comment, that’s a No to causation.
Regarding your latest comment, I wonder how much of that would be true or semi-true without GOP attacks on the ACA?
Debbo, Democrats abandoning Obamacare within five years of its start-up is the strongest attack ever made on the ACA.
You didn’t answer my question.
Debbo,
Ok, if you insist. I took your “I wonder” intro to mean it was a rhetorical question and not a direct question.
I have not done the analysis on causation but I think it likely since it failed on all its other promises. A poorly designed anything ends up being just a big pile of poop, which the abandonment of the program by the Democrats verifies the reality it failed on its fundamental promises and is just a big pile of poop.
Further, if it was a good program, Democrats would be defending the program and opposing the GOP attacks instead of abandoning the program.
Plus, if Democrats really believed the attacks were causing higher premiums, less insured, and higher health care costs AND were really concerned about these things, you’d see a lot more effort to defend Obamacare (instead of abandoning it).
However, I think it wholly ludicrous attacks would impact insurance premiums or health care costs. Regarding whether attacks impact the decision on whether or not to get health insurance for you or your family, I have greater confidence in the intelligence of most households and the education they have received for it to have any measurable impact.
Finally, why are you criticizing the Republicans for criticizing the program since your abandonment is the biggest attack? Doesn’t GOP attacks make it easier to sell your next new shiny program?
If I may, Troy, your side has screwed the ACA so badly, it’s a wonder that it still thrives. Tomorrow, the insurance companies go to the Supreme Court to hear a case for the 12 BILLION that you owe them for screwing them and making premiums go up. Pay attention now Troy, as we all have you and yours number on the shame you’ve put upon those of us who need healthcare. Unlike you, who can sit in your ivory tower and condemn those who are not so fortunate as to have healthcare provided by an employer or that may have health issues where the ACA Obamacare is saving their lives.
“More than $12 billion is at stake for the nation’s health insurers Tuesday when the Supreme Court hears a case involving the Affordable Care Act.
For the federal government, the potential damages could be far greater, as its reputation as a reliable partner to private businesses is on the line.
Unlike earlier Obamacare cases before the high court — where the entire 2010 law and health coverage for millions of Americans was at risk — the latest case has largely flown under consumers’ radar.
The case revolves around a temporary provision in the federal health law — called the “risk-corridor” program — that was designed to help health plans recover some losses in the first three years of ACA marketplaces’ existence.” https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/12/09/786315240/aca-insurers-in-the-supreme-court-why-consumers-should-pay-attention
WTF are you referencing, Troy? Who’s abandoning Obamacare? It needs a tweak or two; mostly because it’s five years old and Republicans have tried to peace meal it apart. A “public option” has always been on the list of new things needed for the ACA. You and your illusory truth are just exhibiting “losers lament”. Obamacare has saved America trillions. It works extremely well in states that expanded Medicaid. My rates haven’t changed in five years. There are tens of thousands more with insurance and costs have gone down. States typically on the wrong side of history e.g. South Dakota, not as well but still a big improvement.
https://www.statnews.com/2019/03/22/affordable-care-act-controls-costs/
Since we are discussing an increase in death rates and Troy wants to blame the ACA it might be useful to consider findings pertaining to the first major Republican dismantling of an essential part of the ACA – the attack on the mandatory Medicaid expansion and subsequent refusal to expand Medicaid in states with Republican ACA opponents:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/a-new-study-found-that-15000-people-died-because-their-state-didnt-expand-medicaid/
Talk about doing significant damage to people the ACA was designed to help.
https://www.healthinsurance.org/blog/2019/07/26/12-ways-the-gop-sabotaged-obamacare/
The Trump Administration and Republicans in Congress have long said that the ACA is collapsing under its own weight. But the individual insurance markets in most states had begun to stabilize by 2017, and 2018 was a profitable year in the individual market.
After steep rate increases in 2017 and 2018 (the latter driven largely by the Trump administration’s decision to stop funding cost-sharing reductions), rate increases for 2019 averaged less than 3 percent nationwide, and proposed rate increases for 2020 are trending even smaller. And while there were numerous insurer exits from the exchanges at the end of 2016 and at the end of 2017, that was not the case at the end of 2018; there was an overall trend towards insurers joining the exchanges for 2019, and that’s happening in some places for 2020 as well.
Well, I think you gentlemen have responded to Troy’s comments well. Thanks.
I’d add that 2 of the original 20+ Democratic candidates want to switch to Medicare for All. That’s hardly a Democratic “abandonment” of the ACA. Extreme exaggeration does not lend credibility to your arguments.
Sorry, Debbo. He’s all your’s. One question, though Troy. What’s the bigger Trump lie?
“I’m absolutely going to repeal Obamacare!” or
“Mexico’s going to pay for the wall!”
Nothing to be sorry for Porter. I was not being sarcastic when I thanked you all. Don’t stop! 😊
If all of what you say is true, why are are most in Party abandoning Obamacare (a program which regulates and cost shifts private insurance as the primary provider of insurance to people under 65) to go to one which eliminates private insurance (which is not a tweak)? I think only Joe, Pete, and Tulsi are the only candidates who remotely defend Obamacare while some go so far as you aren’t really a Democrat if you don’t support Medicare for all.
And, if the Republicans were gutting the program, why hasn’t Pelosi and Company passed bills putting the heat on the GOP in the Senate? Your party is spending absolutely not a single cent of political capital defending Obamacare. Nada. Zilch.
Troy, you must have not read the comments added since your last one. They all address this, which you’ve broached twice now. I think if you’ll go back and give the intervening comments a close read, you’ll see that your argument has been debunked.
Troy. Document your assertions. e.g. “Most in party abandoning Obamacare”
Republicans tried to repeal Obamacare and the American people wouldn’t have it. What’s to defend?
In fact, Troy you’re the only Trumpist I’ve heard even mention Obamacare since the embarrassment of Republicans and Trump in his first two years.
Medicare For All or a hybrid of a public option and Obamacare are natural extensions of Obamacare, not an abandonment.
30.7 Million are now without any kind of health insurance while healthcare costs are skyrocketing as a result of higher medical charges. Fix it Troy. That’s what Chubby said he was gonna due, but we all know he is a liar.
“U.S. spending on health care grew to $3.65 trillion last year, climbing above $11,000 per person for the first time, according to a new report from Medicare actuaries. Spending rose 4.6% in 2018, faster than the 4.2% increase in 2017, even as the number of Americans without health coverage rose by 1 million for the second year in a row, reaching 30.7 million.
The growth in health care spending came primarily as the result of higher prices rather than because people used more care. “Faster growth in medical prices more than offset slower growth in the use and intensity of health care goods and services,” the report says. Medical price inflation rose 2.1%, up from 1.3% in 2017.
The overall rise in health care spending was driven primarily by faster growth in private insurance and Medicare spending. The non-medical cost of health insurance jumped 13%, up from 4.3% in 2017, largely as the result of the reinstatement of an Obamacare tax on health insurers that was suspended for one year in 2017.”
South Dakota has two, just two providers of health insurance for the individual market or the ACA Obamacare market. Let me hear your excuse on why that is Troy, especially since EB5 Rounds is an owner of an insurance brokerage that bears his name.
9th month pregnancy’s are the real problem with life expectancy according to Chubby. Is Chubby the best the white man can have represent this country?
“President Trump said that a number of state laws allow a baby ‘to be born from his or her mother’s womb in the ninth month.”‘
The Rocket Man from North Korea labeled Chubby correctly, a dotard that is leading this country perfectly…according to Putin.
“ 59% of Democrats and Democratic leaners think it is a good idea to remove the current healthcare system and replace it with a single-payer system.” https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=3650
To be clear, “the current healthcare system” is Obamacare. And, almost 60% of Dems & Dem leaners (while not clear from the poll as we can’t see the underlying data, I suspect the actual Dems supporting abandonment is higher than 60% and Dem leaners is less than 60%) wanting it replaced is political abandonment.
Porter, Currently, roughly 2/3 of Americans have private health insurance. It is over 80% of those not over 65 and on Medicare. Under Medicare for All, 100% will be on government health insurance. Medicare for All is not a tweak or natural extension. It is throwing Obamacare under the bus.
BTW Porter, I entered this conversation as CAH so often refers to Medicare for All as the answer for everything. Today it is life expectancy. A few weeks ago it was Meth. I’m just pointing out it is a pretty quick abandonment of Obamacare, the once “solution for all that ails us.”
Debbo, those “only two” (Sanders and Warren) are half of the “big four (five if you count Bloomberg) and those two have abandoned Obamacare in program and rhetoric. Biden’s defense of it is tepid at best. Only Pete seems to be willing to defend it and it is always couched in qualification (which I suspect is driven by a desire to not offend the Medicare for All majority in the party). I have no idea what Bloomberg’s view is or if he will offer any meaningful defense.
Troy: long time no hear. Your argument is no diff than trump/barr burbling that since key witnesses like pompeo et al were not presented the dems failed their impeachment case. How many years has your precious GOP been obstructing Obama’s Affordable Care Act with every propagandist ploy imaginable?? Imagine how much costs would have decreased by now. Republican fools! Rounds is now experiencing a true medical emergency and who do you think will pay for it? All of us you tried to keep off the ACA.
This just in from Numlock News by Walt Hickey:
Bureaucracy saves lives: a new working paper published by three U.S. Treasury economists details an accidental experiment about how healthcare coverage actually relates to outcomes. For years, politicians and economists have debated whether health coverage — and by extension, policies like the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of health coverage and individual mandate — actually saves lives. Three years ago, 3.9 million Americans got a letter from the IRS detailing that they had paid a fine for not having health insurance and directing them towards ways to enroll. The administration had planned to send letters to all 4.5 million people who had to pay the tax fine, but there wasn’t sufficient budget and 600,000 uninsured people were left out of the mailer randomly. The accidental randomized controlled trial about being mildly nudged by the taxman to get some health insurance was a research opportunity, and found that gaining coverage was linked to a 12 percent decline in mortality over the two years, and for every 1,648 Americans aged 45 to 64 who got a letter, one fewer death occurred compared to those who hadn’t received one. The mailing was estimated to have saved 700 lives.
Sarah Kliff, The New York Times
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/12/the-trump-administration-has-just-declared-war-on-social-security/
drumpf wants to cut disability recipients and this was attempted under senile Raygun with the results being over 21 thousand dead, some from suicides over lost benefits.
We know what the effects of the Trump proposal would be, because Ronald Reagan implemented a very similar benefit cut back in the 1980s. Reagan’s policy ripped away the benefits of 200,000 Americans with disabilities. The New York Times reported that “people with obvious physical and mental disabilities” lost their benefits “without having been interviewed.”
Ultimately, Reagan was forced to reverse his attack on Social Security after massive public outcry, and bipartisan condemnation from Congress — but not before 21,176 people died, including several who died by suicide, “because their benefits were cut off.”
from above link….
Callous & Cruel plus his brain, Stephen Goebbels Miller, have no limits.
Babies in cages? Check.
Paraplegics in the streets? Check.
Dead teenagers in their prisons? Check.
Women for breeding purposes? Check.
The next time monsters get a chance to run a country, the comparison will no longer be Hitler. It will be trump/miller.
I’m not sure if that’s hyperbole. We’ll know for certain in a year.
One of the issues we have discussed often that shortens life is the opioid abuse epidemic. Large studies seem to return to two causes.
1. Loss of job. The blue collar work of coal mines, auto plants and such are especially highlighted examples.
2. Accessibility of the opioid.
Even in areas where jobs were nose diving, if Big Pharma was not pushing the painkillers, addiction was lower. Both items appear to be necessary to kill people. “Deaths of despair” via opioid addiction necessarily include easy access to the med to initiate the addiction, which is often replaced by heroin.
Big Pharma CEOs belong in prison.
The Atlantic
is.gd/7DdpDJ