December, 2019 | Medicare Advantage for All

Trump Medicare Advantage

Trump is moving to expand Medicare Advantage. This Executive Order tells Secretary Alex Azar to propose solutions within the next year. I think he ought to order Alex Azar to figure out how to expand Medicare Advantage For All and put that into legislation before the end of the next year! That will begin the healing of our health care system, save the babies lives, lengthen our life spans, reduce the high cost by improving the health and welfare of our people. Go to: www.trump-medicare-advantage-for-all.com for all the answers.

Our Babies are Dying

Infant mortality is an important marker for the overall health of a society. So, what does it mean that the infant mortality rate in the United States is 71% higher than comparable nations on the planet? In October 2019 the Peterson Center on Healthcare, a Kaiser Family Foundation partnership, posted a study indicating that the United States has a neonatal death rate that is 63% higher than comparable countries. Our postnatal (death within the 1st year) death rate is 90% higher than in comparable countries. If that wasn’t bad enough, the study shows that while all developed nation’s infant death rates are declining, the United States has a slower rate of improvement in the average rate of infant mortality. In fact, over the last two decades, our infant mortality has declined at a rate that is 40% less than in other countries.

In the United States, we spend 5% more money on health care than our nearest comparable country. For Americans, this additional expense amounts to almost $One Trillion Dollars. Yet in our country, we have 6 babies die for every thousand babies born. In other comparable countries, that number is half that, with only 3 babies dying per thousand babies born. This is unacceptable. Think about it! We are spending more than any other comparable nation and we have more babies dying and those babies that survive can look forward to shorter life spans for in their most productive years of life (as we previously blogged). As Donald Trump describes it when we spend more than other nations for defense, we are the “suckers”. When we spend more on health care and we get less back, we are being ripped off. We are suckers! And, we have to pass a new Trump Advantage Plan for All to deal with this crisis if we are ever going to put a stop our babies dying.

How Do We Lower the Healthcare GDP?

Did you know that in 2017, America spent about $3.65 trillion, or 18 percent of national health care GDP (NHC_GDP), on health expenditures, which more than twice the average among most developed countries. Chronic illnesses/diseases are a major contributor to the rise in health care costs. 90% of every dollar the US spends on health care goes toward treating chronic illness.

Medical professionals believe that about 80% or more chronic diseases are preventable or almost completely reversible with the right combination of health and wellness promotion and medical intervention.

As a nation, if we had been able to eliminate 50% of the cost of treating chronic illnesses in 2018, which is reasonable; our NHC-GDP would have been 12%, six percentage points (-6%) less than our actual GDP. This level of spending is just about equal to Switzerland, with the second highest NHC-GDP. Did you know that over 48% of our population suffers from chronic illness? Did you know that 2 out of 3 (66%) of Americans are overweight and almost 40% (124.4 Million) are considered obese? Did you also know that our Health and Human Services Department has had the premier Preventative Services Task Force since 1984? Their recommendations are considered the Gold Standard for clinical health preventative services in the world. Still, according to the “New England Journal of Medicine,” by the year 2023, seven chronic diseases will have a total annual impact of $4.2 Trillion dollars on our economy.

Most Americans know that many Americans are overweight (to an unhealthy degree), and it is causing us a lot of problems and a lot of money. Obesity-related health conditions include heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancers, which are the leading causes of preventable and premature death.

The savings from the improved treatment of chronic illness and the restructuring of the health insurance market should easily exceed 8% of GDP. To make a long story short, it is within our power to substantially reduce the cost of our health care in the United States. We have the skills and expertise to simultaneously reduce our health care NHC-GDP to a competitive world market level, secure our exceptional and unique health care financing system, and improve the health, productivity, and insurability of the American people.

Properly designed, competitive, expertly administered and adequately regulated Medicare Advantage for All (MAA) plans can be a meaningful start and will make an important contribution to the health and wellbeing of our people and our nation. After MAA, we will need to invent the next generation Defined Contribution Health plan that tangibly will reward participants for improvements in their behavior and incentivize medical practitioners to deliver effective Preventive Predictive Personal Medical care that will prevent illness, improve health and maintain improvements over the long term. We call this the Trump Apollo Medicare Advantage plans.

These plans will not happen unless we get together and get brutally honest with ourselves. The truth is the ACA’s government regulation created rapidly increasing health insurance premiums and restricted health insurance markets. This accelerated the rise in health care GDP and priced millions of unsubsidized Americans out of the market. Continuing to throw money at the ACA program will only make matters worse. Over the last seven years, all Americans aged 25 – 64 have increased rates of death from ALL causes. U.S. infant mortality is 71% higher than the average of comparable nations of the world. Americans are dying and the ACA has failed us. We are the suckers, paying more than anybody else and getting less for it. It is time to get serious about health reform. Americans are dying.

For more information on the Medicare-Advantage-For-All plan and the movement, visit our Medicare-Advantage-For-All plan page, call us at 1-888-683-3719 or email us at: contact@medicare-advantage-for-all.com.

To support and join this movement, you can download our Membership Application and complete it with your contact information and send it to us with your financial support or just complete the Pay Pal Credit card authorization on Become A Supporter page on our web site.

Life Expectancy and the Health of our Nation has Declined

A recent study published in JAMA showed the life expectancy of Americans has declined significantly over the last three years — a drop driven by higher death rates among all racial and ethnic groups. Americans in the prime of their lives are dying sooner. The death rates increased from 2010 to 2017 for all causes among people aged 25 to 64. Although suicides, drug overdoses, and alcoholism were the main causes, other medical conditions, including heart disease, strokes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, also contributed, the authors reported.

As per the lead author “The whole country is at a health disadvantage compared to other wealthy nations,” Dr. Steven Woolf of Virginia Commonwealth University, said. “We are losing people in the most productive period of their lives. Children are losing their parents. Employers have a sicker workforce.”

We are not surprised. The CDC Health Report for 2017 showed us that deterioration in all but one category (Age 65 and older-heart illness), over the last 20 years: ALL the degrees of disease suffered by the American people and the risk factors that cause them have increased, including heart disease, cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and hypercholesterolemia. In addition, sixty-six percent of our population (66%- up from 15% in 1960) is over-weight. We have the heaviest population of over-weights of any nation in the entire world. Over the last several years we have suffered increases in obesity in every age category 2-5 and 6-11 and 12-19 and now almost forty percent (40%) of all Americans over the age of 20 are obese.

This has got to stop. This weight problem contributes dramatically to our incidence of diabetes and chronic illness, the treatment of which now consumes 90% of the total National Health Care Gross Domestic Product (NHC-GDP). The NHC-GDP is eighteen percent (18% or $3.65 Trillion Dollars) of our total national GDP. The CBO predicts that the NHC-GDP will increase at an average annual rate of 5.5% in the coming decade.

In an April 2019 Associated Press Reported the Democrats enjoyed a strong edge with the voters on health care, with over 40% trusting them compared with 23% trusting Republicans. Our guess is these are the same suburban voters responsible for putting the Democrats back in the majority in the House of Representatives in 2018. None of the Democratic candidates have plans that address the fact that Americans are suffering shorter lives, a sicker workforce and we are at a health disadvantage compared to other countries with which we compete. The political party that successfully addresses these problems will win the hearts, minds and the votes of the American electorate in the next election. Medicare Advantage for All effectively addresses these problems but simply extending the old traditional Medicare plan 4 all does not!

For more information on the Medicare-Advantage-For-All plan and the movement, visit our Medicare-Advantage-For-All plan page, call us at 1-888-683-3719 or email us at: contact@medicare-advantage-for-all.com.

To support and join this movement, you can download our Membership Application and complete it with your contact information and send it to us with your financial support or just complete the Pay Pal Credit card authorization on the Become A Supporter page on our web site.