By mismanaging the Covid-19 pandemic that led to over 1 million Americans dying
“one important reason for this financial improvement (of Medicare) was grisly: Covid killed a substantial number of Medicare beneficiaries. And the victims were disproportionately seniors already suffering from severe — and expensive — health problems. “As a result, the surviving population had spending that was lower than average.”
What explains the American way of death? A large part of the answer seems to be political.
One important clue is that the problem of premature death isn’t evenly distributed across the country. Life expectancy is hugely unequal across U.S. regions, with major coastal cities not looking much worse than Europe but the South and the eastern heartland doing far worse.
Paul Krugman 4/3
Make America Great Again!
