The so-called social determinants of health (SDH) is an initiative by public health advocates to identify nonmedical factors that affect health status. A related field of study is racial disparities in health. In a nutshell, poor minorities supposedly suffer from a myriad of health problems related to lower income, less education, lower access to medical care, living in food deserts, enduring poverty, microaggressions, discrimination, living in lead and smog-tainted neighborhoods on the wrong side of the tracks, etc.
Category: Devon Herrick
Uncle Sam Wants to Change Your Diet (for the better)
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture under Trump plans to upend the food pyramid of recommended dietary guidelines. Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. has definite ideas about what constitutes healthy food. It seems like every few years public health officials decide to change dietary recommendations. Usually, it’s about eating more salad, but Kennedy has other ideas.
Was 1955 the Golden Age of Health Care Finance?
The 1950s was a simpler time in medicine. Mostly absent was the bureaucracy and overhead required nowadays when billing multiple insurance companies and government programs. Doctors mostly had one price, with perhaps a small discount for BlueCross. Most Americans paid their physician visits directly. This was about the time when Americans were beginning to acquire health coverage through work. Congress intentionally created an incentive for employers to offer coverage when it exempted employee health insurance from taxes. Health insurance was relatively cheap in 1955 because technology was primitive compared to now, and medical inflation was not yet a thing.
Did Repealing the Individual Mandate Cause Obamacare’s High Premiums?
When the Affordable Care Act was debated in Congress, and even earlier as progressives geared up for the fight, public health advocates often repeated the phrase, “health coverage will not be affordable until everyone has coverage.” The idea was that forcing everyone to have similar coverage, while charging similar rates, would somehow make coverage affordable. Or at least it would make coverage affordable for those with pre-existing conditions, if not for those who were healthier. I recently ran across someone who is blaming the high cost of Obamacare on the repeal of the individual mandate. Absent was any discussion about poorly crafted plan design, a multiplicity of mandated benefits and costly regulations.