This map shows how middle aged, 25-54, white death rates have change from 1999 to 2020. California changed by limiting private health insurance, the rest of the country changed by letting private health insurance systematically decide if they would pay for expensive non-elderly health care. A major problem is we do not have an empirical measure of how private health insurance operates in our mortality data. Only three states have less of a decline in their age 65-84 death rate than California has for their middle aged. I can only think of one possibility, private health insurance simply is not doing it’s job in providing health care to the middle-aged.

Source: New York Times July 05, 2023 19:19 UTC