obesity is probably to blame here. So many chronic health problems are probably downstream from obesity.
Researchers also found that Black and Hispanic families lost a higher percentage of their wages than white families. By 2019, health care premiums as percentage of compensation were 18.5% for Asian families, 19.2% for Black families, and 19.8% for Hispanic families, compared to 13.8% for white families.
Lower-wage workers are also hit hard by this disparity. In 2019, health care premiums as percentage of compensation represented 28.5% of compensation for families in the 20th percentile of earnings, compared with only 3.9% for families in the 95th percentile.
Maybe not the one you want to skip the article for. On another note Asian Americans are skinnier than White Americans even adjusted for on BMI so obesity is ruled out.
Blacks and Asians definitely, possibly for different reasons. Not completely certain about hispanics tbf.
The vast majority of people actually need those "junk plans" Obama eliminated: Catastrophic coverage plans with fairly high deductibles (which HSAs would handle after a few years...)
I'm not sure I'd call it a disaster, but I will agree that ACA did absolutely nothing to address the core issue:
Health care is just too expensive.
I crashed my mountain bike in the summer of 2022, broke my arm and scraped up my knee real bad, though managed to put my bike back on the rack on my car and drive to the ER one-handed. They did an X-Ray, confirmed the breakage, gave me an arm sling and a prescription for painkillers, and cleaned up my knee. Total visit was 20 minutes. Without insurance, it would have cost me nearly $3,000.
$3,000 for 20 minutes of work between an X-Ray tech, 1 doc, 1 nurse, and 1 person at the front desk.
I understand that there's overhead, but I still think that cost was 5x what it should have been.
We can start with the simple fact that catastrophic plans still exist and that they actually cover things, now. That you think they both don’t exist and we’re somehow better before defies belief.
There seems to have been a spark that set off the obesity conflagration sometime around 1978-1981. The kindling that nurtures this spark had been accumulating since the early 20th century… The chemicals you mention were certainly contributory.