Next year will be an important one for American health. Donald Trump’s incoming administration has pledged a new focus on chronic diseases in hopes of better understanding and preventing what makes us sick. Next year, we’ll also see the expiration of the expanded government subsidies that boosted Affordable Care Act insurance-exchange enrollments. Democrats are pushing to extend these subsidies, but Trump and the GOP should resist the pressure. Allowing those costly subsidies to end does not conflict with the new administration’s goal of improving health, and it will save hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars.
Health policy has long focused on expanding insurance coverage at enormous cost to taxpayers. Policymakers assumed that coverage would increase access to care, which would improve health outcomes. Yet, as we document in our new Paragon Health Institute study, little evidence suggests that expanded government health insurance programs improve most people’s health.
U.S. life expectancy peaked in 2014, then stagnated, while mortality rates from major medical causes of death continued to rise, even as the newly implemented ACA expanded insurance coverage.
