Episode 185: Decreasing Lifespans and How to Fix Them (Or Not)

The New York Times had an article noting that life expectancy in the US started declining in the 2014/2015 time frame, and no one seems to know why. What could have happened around that time that might account for this? Hmmm…

But the government’s solution for that was based on a system that is killing its “beneficiaries”. Is the cure worse than the disease?

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Mentioned links:

Life Expectancy in U.S. Declines Slightly, and Researchers Are Puzzled

Disgrace: Almost 100 Veterans Died Waiting For Health Care At Los Angeles VA Hospital

Obamacare Death Spiral: First 2018 Coverage Map Reveals At Least 47 Counties With No Coverage

Show transcript

The New York Times had an article in December of 2016 noting that life expectancy in the US has been declining, and no one seems to know why.

A study on mortality rates released on Thursday by the National Center for Health Statistics showed that Americans could expect to live for 78.8 years in 2015, a decrease of 0.1 from the year before. The overall death rate increased 1.2 percent — that’s about 86,212 more deaths than those recorded in 2014.

Dr. Peter Muennig, a professor of health policy and management at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, said in an interview that the decline was a “uniquely American phenomenon” in comparison with other developed countries, like Japan or Sweden.

“A 0.1 decrease is huge,” Dr. Muennig said. “Life expectancy increases, and that’s very consistent and predictable, so to see it decrease, that’s very alarming.”

Now let’s see; what could have happened around that time that might account for this? Wasn’t there some major change in health care around then, like some major piece of legislation whose first components were phased in by January, 2014? Something that happened only in the US at that time, not Japan or Sweden? Something that was supposed to protect patients, and make health care affordable?

Yeah, you know; ObamaCare. And as the Republicans try to repeal and replace it, just remember this as Democrats claim that the replacement will kill people; their so-called “remedy” is doing exactly that! Granted, we don’t know precisely what the causes are, but no one predicted this, especially since so many folks think that the more government spends on health care, the better health care should be. So much for that idea.

ObamaCare was supposed to make costs go down, but it didn’t, and it was supposed to make health care better, but it doesn’t sound like that’s happening either. Other than that, it’s a rousing success! But what was it supposed to do “other than that”?

And here’s the thing; the system that ObamaCare was based on – the Veterans Administration medical system – has already had exactly that track record. So A) ObamaCare was not better than what replaced it, and 2) the life expectancy issue was completely predictable. Exhibit A (well, Exhibit Q, since this has been going on for so long) is the VA system in Los Angeles.

Between October, 2014 and August, 2015, almost 100 vets died while waiting for their care to, y’know, happen. We’re not positive that the delay was the actual cause of death in all cases, but the fact that they were waiting and waiting means that they weren’t getting the care that they dese...