Medicare is often seen as a universal safety net, a guarantee for older Americans that, after decades of work and having taxes withheld from their paychecks, the federal government will provide health insurance once they reach 65. But a new study found an increasing number of people are dying before they realize that promise.
Premature deaths among 18-to-64-year-olds rose 27 percent, going from 243 to 309 deaths per 100,000 adults between 2012 and 2022, according to a study published Friday in JAMA Health Forum. Among Black adults, the study found the increase was about 10 percentage points higher compared to white adults.
While some of the rise is attributable to deaths related to the COVID pandemic, the report revealed stark inequities in who lives long enough to collect the benefits they’ve helped fund, finding disparate outcomes not just by race but also by place. States such as West Virginia, New Mexico, and Mississippi had the nation’s highest premature-mortality rates, while Massachusetts and Minnesota fared best, the study showed.
How long someone lives, he said, is largely a component of three things: biology and genetics; individual health behaviors such as diet and exercise, and societal factors like breathing polluted air or experiencing chronic — and ultimately corrosive — stress.
“We work ourselves to death,” LaVeist said. “We live in a very stressful society, and the stress has become normative because everyone’s living under” it. Though he noted that the stress is not distributed evenly throughout the society.
Otto von Bismarck established the first comprehensive social insurance system in Germany in the late 1880s, creating a precedent for modern social security systems worldwide. His programs included mandatory health, accident, and old-age/disability insurance, funded by employer and employee contributions. The motivation was to provide worker security, increase social stability, and counter the growing appeal of socialist movements.
Benefits kicked in at 65.
Life expectancy at the time, 63
No surprise there. I think it was in this episode Web Player - Pocket Casts that a guest of Attia said that on the US, once you get to 65, you can expect to live longer, partly due to the improved Healthcare system that you have access to, in this case Medicare. They were comparing mortality numbers of the US compared to developped nations, and noticed that the US numbers got much better if you only counted people 65 and over.
It’s amazing what a socialized medical system does. When everyone has great healthcare, you don’t need to stress about insurance or whether you can afford to retire, and you get the care you need when you need it. However, it is very expensive. I am glad for the socialized medical system in Hong Kong. It’s probably one of the main reasons why we have one of the longest lifespans in the world. (Also, the population is far from obese, even with stress levels that are quite high for most).
It’s appalling really. And short-sighted. Imagine the economic gains if people were healthier, less time off work, less chronic diseases. Seems to me that investing in the health of the population is one of the best ROI investments a government can make.