Regarding our votes and our viewpoints as the election spin continues and remote statistics for every sort of criteria for measuring how our country is doing are tossed out by different public figures depending on their point of view, it is here argued that the MOST important question is whether individuals feel like they’re better off than four years ago.
That’s right, the most important question is how WE think things are going in our lives that public figures claim is subjective as they pat us on our ignorant heads and recite some statistic indicating that we’re “factually” wrong.
For healthcare. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). THERE ARE NO FACTUAL ARGUMENTS TO DEFEND OR ATTACK THE PPACA REGARDING WHETHER CITIZENS ARE BETTER OFF.
President Obama will tout it as a “success” (mostly because he got it passed not because of its usefulness for citizens or based on any actual experience of citizens or even regarding whether it will be upheld as constitutional) and Mitt Romney will argue it’s a failure (mostly because everything Obama did or failed to do is a failure in his eyes).
All announcements that put forth conclusions such as US life expectancy is up are based on data that is OLD. That lag time between our experience and statistics that reflect our experience is over one year. This is significant when it comes to arguing healthcare reform.
The Affordable Care Act turned two years old in March after becoming law in March of 2010. The most recent STATISTICS (those numbers that are crunched and twisted and thrown out as factoids to individuals regarding basic information about US health such as life expectancy and healthcare costs) are publishing conclusions based on data comparing year 2009 to year 2010.
At most these statistics have nine months of experience with the Affordable Care Act with many provisions of the Act not beginning until after the year 2010. A great timeline of what became effective and when is put out by HealthCare.gov (http://www.healthcare.gov/law/timeline/index.html).
While it’s taken over a year and closer to two to produce documents representing the old data, it is significant to note that the data is old.
Now regarding this old data, there are sources to verify what we hear. For instance, a “new” report from the Health Care Cost Institute, a nonprofit organization declares, “Rising prices for care were the chief driver of health care costs for privately insured Americans in 2010.” http://healthcostinstitute.org/news-and-events/press-release-2010-health-care-cost-and-utilization-report
Breaking down cost increases including +2.6 percent for physician visits, lab work and imaging to +11 percent for increased costs in emergency room costs for one year, 2009 to 2010 the report goes on to note that “USE [emphasis added] of health care services declined by more than 5 percent.” http://healthcostinstitute.org/news-and-events/press-release-2010-health-care-cost-and-utilization-report
So we’re told that fewer patients USED healthcare but costs of healthcare rose.
Why the frustration? Let’s see. In 2008 this blog advised, “Affordable access to quality health care...all three are necessary to address the health services crisis and without cost controls on premium increases and medical costs, consumers will continue to pay for a system that puts their needs last.” http://conoutofconsumer.blogspot.com/2008/05/high-deductible-health-insurance.html
It should be noted that life expectancy data from the Centers for Disease Control announce that life expectancy went up in 2010 based on its preliminary report by 0.1 of a year.
“The preliminary estimate of life expectancy at birth for the total population in 2010 is 78.7 years. This represents an increase in life expectancy of 0.1 year relative to 2009.” Murphy SL, Xu JQ, Kochanek KD. Deaths: Preliminary Date for 2010. National Vital Statistics Reports; vol 60 no. 4, Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2012. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_04.pdf, “Trends in Numbers and Rates”, page 5.
The stat that we are living longer of up to one/tenth of a year based on information from 2010 can be used as all other statistics to bolster the incumbent’s position or for the challenger to scoff at the supposed “progress” that’s been made.
It can also be used to argue that Americans are taking better care of themselves or that holistic remedies are working since fewer Americans are using healthcare or that singing to the moon improves life expectancy.
The point is that at best the arguments we hear are OPINIONS based on the singular fact of an increase in life expectancy of 0.1 year based on research conducted from 2009 to 2010.
Regarding arguments we'll hear that at least we don’t have that socialized medicine that we’ve been told is so bad for citizens.
Except that the US ranks 50th in life expectancy according to the US government, “The World Fact Book” as posted on the CIA website. (Canada is 12th and the UK dropped to 30th and France is at 14th) and these statistics are dated 2012 in the source. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html
Why the frustration? Because in 2007 this blog stated:
“In August, the US was ranked as 42nd in terms of life expectancy for its citizens.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/08/13/life.expectancy.ap/index.html
Whether the statistic is used to blame US citizens for obesity, laziness, or failure to have screenings or sufficient insurance, the facts are the facts and while we distract ourselves with blaming the citizenry for getting sick and dying, we are number 42. NOT in the top 10, not some super-power example of how fabulous life is here, FORTY TWO.”
We’ve dropped eight places since then. Our healthcare system is arguably MORE broken based on our life expectancy compared to other countries.
Data takes time to gather, formulate, process and report. Statistics can be viewed in many different ways.
What is clear is that every individual’s experience is as valid as anyone quoting statistics about healthcare in the US.
