We are spending 2.1 times per capita more on healthcare than Canadians do only to have increasingly shorter lifespans than they do. To get to our ever-shorter life span, we waste 2.3 times our defense budget, or $1.7 trillion a year. The American Death Curve.
Our Death Curve gets steeper by the day as we waste ever more for ever less. Between 2013 and 2016, we spent 15% more on healthcare. But, our lifespan dropped 0.7 years. Canadians, who enjoy roughly the same median income that we do, now live nearly four years longer. Imagine what freeing up the wasted $1.7 trillion, almost 9% of our GDP, could do for our economy. These numbers are staggering.
At $1.7 trillion in waste, think of the amounts being sucked out of individual pockets and corporate coffers for absolutely no purpose. Except, of course, to shorten our lives.
Where are our political parties on this? We are well into the next election cycle and haven’t heard a peep about fixing our American Death Curve.
The GOP Coalition is terrified. It is focused on killing the last, half-hearted attempt to put America back on the healthcare price-performance curve, Obama Care. The Democrats mumble on and off about “Medicare for all.” But at what price? The Death Curve price?
Meanwhile, we throw $1.7 trillion and rising out the window every year. That’s our entire GDP every eleven years! Just to live ever-shorter lives.
Note that Publius explained this gigantic American problem in only 41 words. The numbers involved make it our number one political challenge. Nothing else is bigger. Now, if Publius can lay this out so quickly and simply, what can’t, say Kamala Harris? Or Joe Biden?
We know that Dumb Don can’t speak English and so can’t read even Publius’ 41 words. Don’s inability to use simple syntax in his Trumplish means that he cannot understand those few words even if someone tried to explain them to him. And he certainly could not think through a solution to the problem, let alone explain it in his garbled Trumplish.
For his Growth and Development Party (GDP) platform, Publius proposes a party-independent commission managed by two CEOs with unparalleled experience in logistics and efficiency, Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart, and Tim Cook, CEO of Apple. They will have six months to create a Smart Policy for healthcare that gets us off the American Death Curve and onto Canadian price-performance.
No one will touch this, however.
As the opioid crisis shows us, there is just too much money to be made in our $1.7 trillion waste pile. And made by those who fuel lobbying budgets so that they can suck down this money. And made by those who, thanks to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, fund elections unrestrained to get their share.
So, Americans! Enjoy your Death Curve! It’s coming for you!