A healthy America? Sure. But not the way we do it today. This topic is well covered by the Petersen Foundation and the Kaiser Family Foundation. Their data below shows we spend twice as much for four years shorter lifespans than the average of other high income nations. Infant mortality is a particular standout - we have a six to ten times higher rate of infant deaths than those other countries. Excess health care costs in America add about $2 trillion of costs to our entire economy. Our inefficient health care system effectively adds a 7% tax on everything else we produce and consume in America. This imposes about the same drag on businesses, jobs, and government efficiency as doubling the state sales tax rates in all 50.states.
From Healthsystemtracker.org, a joint project of the Petersen Foundation and KFF Foundation:
Comparative costs of US healthcare with other high income nations:
Relative life expectancy of Americans compared with other high income nations:
https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-life-expectancy-compare-countries/
Why Americans are dying sooner than in other nations:
KFF was founded by Henry Kaiser, a joint venture partner in Six Companies, which built Hoover Dam, then built Liberty Ships to defeat Tojo’s Japan and Nazi Germany. After World War II, Kaiser operated in the construction, steel, and aluminum industries before becoming focused on health care.
The Peter G. Petersen Foundation was founded in 2008 by a former Secretary of Commerce after he left public service. Petersen co-founded the investment firm Blackstone, and was a friendly neighbor of Dennis and Jeanette around the corner in High Woodlands, Kirkland, Washington for a few minutes from time to time.
As Congress Fails On Common Sense Policies, America Bears The Burden
Congress was created and charged by the American People in our Constitution as the policy body responsible for fixing these kinds of structural problems. That is how our Constitution reads. Policy power resides entirely in Article I – which created the House and Senate. The President’s power is to faithfully execute the laws passed by Congress – or veto them, which Congress can then override if it chooses. That’s the only power the executive branch has besides negotiating treaties to be approved by the Senate, receiving Ambassadors from other nations, and consulting with his advisors – that is all the Article II powers of the President in a nutshell. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution
Congress could take the lead in fixing the system, which would both reduce costs and improve life expectancy at the same time. A sound, thoughtful fix would (a) lower the cost burden on all federal and state government budgets, reducing federal deficits and tax burdens for health care, (b) improve the cost competitiveness of America businesses by lowering total hourly labor costs as they work to export products around the world, and (c) Americans overall would live significantly longer and healthier lives.
But these members of Congress haven't done this, and this bunch simply won't. That's the reliable barometer of sentiment in DC based upon the reelection rate of incumbents and the decades they have spent in office and known about these profound problems with cost-efficient health care delivery in America. And, just like the illegal bioweapon and criminal racketeering operations and cover-up run by federal government police powers – military, intelligence, and civilian - described at length on this website, they have refused to fix health care delivery.
If Congress Won’t Fix These Problems, We, the People, Simply Must Fix Congress
United States Senate Rules obstruct the People’s business: blue slip (home state holds on court nominations), filibuster (60 vote of 100 total supermajority required to advance legislation), and hold (anyone can hold anything for an unlimited period of time) – the “Little Emperor” rules were anathema to our Founders. Alexander Hamilton, 1787:
“But this is not all: what at first sight may seem a remedy, is, in reality, a poison. To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision), is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser. Congress, from the nonattendance of a few States, have been frequently in the situation of a Polish diet, where a single VOTE has been sufficient to put a stop to all their movements. A sixtieth part of the Union, which is about the proportion of Delaware and Rhode Island, has several times been able to oppose an entire bar to its operations. This is one of those refinements which, in practice, has an effect the reverse of what is expected from it in theory. The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching towards it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority. In those emergencies of a nation, in which the goodness or badness, the weakness or strength of its government, is of the greatest importance, there is commonly a necessity for action. The public business must, in some way or other, go forward.“ Excerpt from Federalist Paper #22 at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1404/1404-h/1404-h.htm#link2H_4_0022
One Senator can halt all progress in Congress on any legislative policy fix using the Senate's current rules. Our Founder’s clearly despised this aspect of the Articles of Confederation Congress adopted in 1777, which were used to run the US until April 1789. They were trying to fix this obstruction by a single vote which can hold the public business hostage to a narrow special interest when they enacted our Constitution. This obstructive reality in Senate rules has been in place more or less since Aaron Burr, angry that Thomas Jefferson was elected President instead of Aaron Burr, persuaded Senators to adopt these obstructive rules during Thomas Jefferson’s first term in office which began in 1801.
This was personal – Burr clearly did not like Jefferson, and he later assassinated Hamilton, who wrote the words quoted above about a single vote being a terrible obstacle to the public business. Burr then tried to raise an insurrection to take over the nation’s brand new Capitol in Washington, DC, by persuading the Army general in New Orleans (who was guarding the only sea entrance to the Mississippi and Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase) to march back to DC with him. It didn’t work. So, perhaps it’s time to get past rules which originated in personal grudges left over from the 1801 election? And get on with the People’s business – instead of honoring 100 Little Emperors (100 Senators) imperious blue slips, filibusters, and holds - which can hang up all the work done in Congress on one narrow special interest for as long as they wish.
That would be a good start.