Real Numbers vs Selective Statistics

I keep harping on how politicians – from both sides of the aisle – lie with statistics. You can understand what, because of “averages,” our economy is hardly a success for the vast majority of American. See my July 26^th The Rich Get Richer blog for a clearer analysis. And as you watch Donald Trump brag about “his” quarterly growth statistic that suggests if the last quarter were to continue consistently, we would have a 4.1% GDP annualized growth statistic, unparalleled in recent American history. But we don’t.

Well aside from the fact that the number itself reflects how the “rich get richer” top-heavy average makes the whole look great when most of us don’t get that benefit, that 4.1% number reflected only the performance of a single quarter, not the year. And no Donald Trump, you did not, as you tweeted, break any records. There have been such aberrantly-high quarterly numbers even during the administration you love to trash the most. You see that there were four higher quarters during the Obama years: 4.5% Q4 2009, 4.7% in Q4 2011, 5.1% in Q2 2014, and 4.9% in Q3 2014. But if Trump can lie about hard facts at the drop of a hat, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to lie with statistics.

Here are some real numbers that probably impact each and every one of you all the time, and they relate to one of the most flagrant cost-price-spirals in our entire healthcare system, one for which there are very few efforts – beyond pleading and jawboning – aimed at systematically bringing the cost of pharmaceuticals to a reasonable plane. And while prescription drugs are rising particularly fast, the whole system is clearly out of control.

The Trump administration’s eviscerating of the Affordable Care Act (ACA also called Obamacare) is costing all of us dearly as well. Preexisting conditions and aggregate lifetime caps are creeping back into our healthcare system. Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s recent appointee to the Supreme Court, is already biased against the ACA. We cannot afford this! Hell, the entire nation spends about 18% of its entire GDP on healthcare, almost double the expenditures of the next largest healthcare systems on earth. And costs are skyrocketing. In 2000, we only spent 13.3% of our GDP on healthcare.

By way of example, if you have lapsed and turned on old-world, ad-supported broadcast networks or high-profile ad-supported cable networks, you probably have been deluged with the mass of ads for prescription drugs with names that would be more appropriate for a favorite pet. “Good boy, Otezla! Sit, Prevnar, sit!” You can see how much big pharmas spend on marketing and advertising, which really jacks prices to the limit, but they claim it’s their relatively lackluster expenditure on research that forces prices up. Actually, it’s most the profits they keep and/or distribute to shareholders that really kicks prices on high. For specifics, please go back and read my April 19^th Wanna Buy Some Drugs? blog.

But if you want to be truly alarmed, just look at how expensive the prescription drug healthcare system really is, how much Americans really spend on prescription drugs every year. Ordinary consumers account for just shy of 70% of our entire economy, and what they dole out for prescription pharmaceuticals is crazy-stupid. In 2017, consumers spent $3.75 trillion of these drugs. Add another $6.68 trillion on doctor and dentist visits. Numbers courtesy of 24/7WallSt.com. We spend an average almost $9,237 for healthcare for each and every man, woman and child in America for a total of $34.9 trillion.

Do we get our money’s worth? Hell no! “With development, health outcomes generally improve, but the U.S. is an anomaly. The U.S. and the U.K. are both high-income, highly developed countries. The U.K. spends less per person ($3,749) on health care than the U.S. ($9,237). Despite its high spending, the U.S. does not have the best health outcomes. [Life expectancy, for example, is 79.1 years in the U.S. and 80.9 years in the U.K. And while the U.S. spends more on health care than any country in the world, it ranks 12th in life expectancy among the 12 wealthiest industrialized countries, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit organization focusing on health issues.]” NPR.com (4/20/17).

Make the bad man stop! Oh, the bad man is buddies with all those pharma CEOs, the ones he just signed a massive corporate tax reduction bill for. You know Trump may tell his base how he is helping them and their medical needs, but he is actually doing precisely the opposite. Healthcare is out of reach for too many, and the leading source of bankruptcies in the United States is and been for a long time over unaffordable healthcare, an occurrence that simply does not happen elsewhere in the developed world.

I’m Peter Dekom, and a country can separate little tiny children from their parents and help corporate healthcare to push prices far beyond the reach of millions of us is an immoral nation of elites who want more and more every day… and have a president who gives them exactly what they want.