25% of our Economy is Morbidly Obese
Healthcare costs in America continue to rise with little discussion
While the cable news networks endlessly debate Trump’s behavior on January 6th, the Biden Family’s corruption, UFOs and climate change, healthcare costs have continued to rise, with insurance plan premiums alone now 24% of median family incomes, up from 11% in 1999.
And, according to the Balance, in 2020 the total cost of healthcare per person was $12,530, up from just $150 per person in 1960 in inflation adjusted numbers - an astonishing 820% increase.
And while the Biden administration is touting their “Inflation Reduction Act” measures that will allegedly cut drug prices for a very small list of drugs, the pharmaceutical industry is by far the biggest lobby in Washington, spending $373M in lobbying efforts (read: paying off politicians) in 2022 alone. This was $150M MORE than any other lobby interest, so it is no wonder that prescription drug prices are soaring again in 2023. Pharma’s close cousin in the race to make healthcare unaffordable for most Americans - the insurance industry - is 3rd in lobbying money spent.
Of major concern is that the pharmaceutical industry’s marketing campaigns are anathema to real healthcare. Estimates are that Big Pharma is now the second largest advertiser in America and a recent study showed that 70% of drugs advertised on TV are of “low therapeutic value.” The concept of “disease mongering” - where pharmaceutical marketing teams and their advertising partners invent, promote or otherwise exaggerate new diseases in order to convince unsuspecting Americans to seek treatment - has been identified and studied since the 1990s. And it’s working. Prescription Drug expenditure rose sharply after the US Government began to allow TV advertising for prescription drugs in 1985:
For more recent examples, there are a number of serious reports that the FDA did not provide due diligence of the new COVID vaccines. This includes 2 Top FDA officials resigning in protest over the Biden Admin’s booster policy, a Pfizer executive admitting they never tested if the vaccine would stop transmission and, the FDA refusing to provide better information over the risks associated with the vaccine.
In 2010, President Obama and the Democrats in Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, colloquially known as Obamacare. The Act passed with many spurious promises including, “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” and “if you like your insurance plan, you can keep your insurance plan.” None of that was true. And more importantly, the promise that Obamacare would cut the cost of healthcare in America also never came to fruition.
Why is this so? From our perspective at #TheCountry, real reform of the bloated, inefficient and costly US healthcare system is captured by classic fascism - the collusion of our elected officials and large corporations - in this case Pharma and Health Insurers - to enrich each other. Insurance companies spent large sums of money to lobby lawmakers as Obamacare was written and have become close allies of many politicians as the law and its associated regulations have been implemented. These insurers have since become huge fans of Obamacare as their pockets are lined with government mandated insurance plans with higher revenue each and every year (see chart at the top).
What have we gotten for all these increased expenditures? One measure of overall health is life expectancy at birth, which did not change in the 8 years after Obamacare was enacted:
It has also been reported that life expectancy since then has decreased for the first time ever in America.
And while the number of uninsured Americans dropped significantly from 2010 to 2016, the number of uninsured Americans started rising again soon after, with 30 million uninsured by 2020.
The worst part of all of these terrible indicators is that no Presidential candidate is talking about them. We’ve seen costs continue to rise unabated, outcomes stagnant and the people struggling to pay all of these bloated costs. We need real reform to our healthcare system and it hasn’t been seriously considered for more than a decade. We don’t have all the answers here at The Country, but we encourage you to ask your elected officials:
What is your plan to reduce the TOTAL COSTS OF HEALTHCARE in America?
In 1999, insurance premiums were 11% of income, now they are 25%. How will you reduce premiums back to 1999 levels?
Are pharmaceutical ads on TV and the internet good for the people? How will you eliminate the bad science and bad outcomes these companies are promoting with little to no oversight from the FDA?
What sort of investment will it take to bring our healthcare technology, processes and systems into the 21st century?
Let’s force our leaders to explain themselves and the way out of this mess.