Health Insurance Reform Has Surprisingly Little Impact on Actual Health

The typical American’s health compares poorly to that of their counterparts in other high-income countries, even though the U.S. spends twice as much as these countries do on medical care. Behind that middling average lies substantial health inequality. A 40-year-old American male can expect to live 15 years less if he’s one of the poorest 1% of Americans rather than one of the richest 1%. Black children who live in the richest parts of the United States have higher mortality rates than White children in the poorest parts of the country. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Many have put these observations together with another aspect of U.S. “exceptionalism”: We are the only high-income country without universal health insurance coverage. And they have concluded that the key to improving health and reducing health inequality in the U.S. is to finally enact universal coverage. They’re wrong. While these two facts are correct, they have very little to do with each other. There are good reasons to support universal health coverage, but noticeably improving population health is not one of them. Indeed, the evidence suggests that the health disparities among Americans are not driven by differences in access to health insurance or to medical care. Rather, the key to improving health is far more complex: It lies in changing health behaviors and reducing exposure to external sources of poor health. Perhaps the clearest evidence for ...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized freelance Source Type: news