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American Life Expectancy Fell for Three Straight Years After ACA’s Key Provisions Took Effect

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Brian Blase

President at Paragon Health Institute

Brian Blase, Ph.D., is the President of Paragon Health Institute. Brian was Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy at the White House’s National Economic Council (NEC) from 2017-2019, where he coordinated the development and execution of numerous health policies and advised the President, NEC director, and senior officials. After leaving the White House, Brian founded Blase Policy Strategies and served as its CEO.

Drew Gonshorowski

Senior Research Fellow at Paragon Health Institute

Drew Gonshorowski is a Senior Research Fellow at Paragon Health Institute. He brings a decade of experience conducting quantitative research and building models examining health policy and entitlement programs.

This week’s Paragon Pic is taken from Brian Blase’s paper with Casey Mulligan and Phil Kerpen. Life expectancy—perhaps the best measure of our population’s health—did not increase after 2014, which is the year the ACA expanded Medicaid and the new exchanges were implemented. Instead, after increasing an average of 1.5 years per decade before 2014, life expectancy declined from 2014 through 2017. Life expectancy worsened in states that adopted the ACA Medicaid expansion from 2014 to 2017 relative to states that did not adopt the expansion. Despite roughly $2 trillion in ACA-related spending over the past decade, Americans are not healthier—a clear sign that there are far more important determinants of health than enrolling more people in Medicaid and Medicaid-like coverage in the exchanges.

2DG AipicLE 01

This week’s Paragon Pic is taken from Brian Blase’s paper with Casey Mulligan and Phil Kerpen. Life expectancy—perhaps the best measure of our population’s health—did not increase after 2014, which is the year the ACA expanded Medicaid and the new exchanges were implemented. Instead, after increasing an average of 1.5 years per decade before 2014, life expectancy declined from 2014 through 2017. Life expectancy worsened in states that adopted the ACA Medicaid expansion from 2014 to 2017 relative to states that did not adopt the expansion. Despite roughly $2 trillion in ACA-related spending over the past decade, Americans are not healthier—a clear sign that there are far more important determinants of health than enrolling more people in Medicaid and Medicaid-like coverage in the exchanges.

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Brian Blase

President at Paragon Health Institute

Brian Blase, Ph.D., is the President of Paragon Health Institute. Brian was Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy at the White House’s National Economic Council (NEC) from 2017-2019, where he coordinated the development and execution of numerous health policies and advised the President, NEC director, and senior officials. After leaving the White House, Brian founded Blase Policy Strategies and served as its CEO.

Drew Gonshorowski

Senior Research Fellow at Paragon Health Institute

Drew Gonshorowski is a Senior Research Fellow at Paragon Health Institute. He brings a decade of experience conducting quantitative research and building models examining health policy and entitlement programs.