As US Life Expectancy Reaches a New High, Health Care Costs Leave Health Insurance Plans Out of Reach
August 2009
It's a strange paradox: while the medical costs of
health coverage continue to rise, the U.S. life expectancy still hits an all time high.
It would seem that higher prices for health insurance plans would lead to the opposite effect. Since insurance is so costly, shouldn't people be dying younger?
Well, in reality, the simultaneous spikes in costs and lifetime longevity are actually closely connected.
According to the
Atlanta Journal Constitution, the very rise in our lifespans is actually related the costs of medicine, and reflects how health coverage does and does not serve the public.
It seems we're living longer, but not necessarily better.
Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine, believes that the rise in our life exectancies is due to the ability of new and very expensive medicines to forestall death, despite a growing economic burden associated with chronic disease. So we're living longer, but the quality of that lifespan probably isn't all that great.
And the cost of those life-saving, expensive medicines plays itself out in the prices we pay for our health insurance plans. So, we live longer thanks to expensive medicine, but expensive medicine is burdening our economic situation and burying us in debt.
Which is why so many health care reformists want to devise a health coverage plan that would focus on prevention, not simply on treating sickness. By preventing disease altogether, Americans can still enjoy a long lifespan, and they can even enjoy it to boot.
Facts on:
Health Care Costs
Did you know...
our life exectancies are possibly due to the ability of new and very expensive medicines?
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But selling a lower cost
health insurance plan that maximizes life expectancy and minimizes costs is going to be a difficult thing to do. It would require a major overhaul of our current health care system.
And with both sides of the Senate deadlocked in debates regarding just how to do that, it could be longer than we'd like before a real solution presents itself.
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