Thursday Miscellany

David Ermer–CDC–

Today the Centers for Disease Control released final U.S. life expectancy data for the U.S.

  • Life expectancy for the U.S. population in 2018 was 78.7 years, an increase of 0.1 year from 2017.
  • The age-adjusted death rate decreased by 1.1% from 731.9 deaths per 100,000 standard population in 2017 to 723.6 in 2018.

These improvements, while slight, are the first improvements in four years. The Wall Street Journal observes that

Lower mortality from cancer, accidents and unintentional injuries were the main reasons life expectancy ticked up in 2018. The {CDC] also said that drug overdose deaths among U.S. residents fell 4% that year, the first such decline in 28 years.

Good news indeed but, of course, room for improvement remains.

The Washington Post discusses a Health Care Cost Institute (“HHCI”) report finding that the Trump Administration’s final rule requiring hospital to disclose their negotiated prices for 300 common services may reduce prices. From the HCCI report,

  • If the highest market prices – for each service – declined such that they were equivalent to the 60th percentile price today, spending would decrease even if the lowest-priced claims within all services were raised to the 59th percentile price;
  • If the lowest 33% of prices – for each service – increased to the 33rd percentile, spending would increase even if the highest 10% of prices – for each service – were lowered to the 90th percentile; ​
  • If within each service, the highest-priced claims were lowered to the 75th percentile market price and the lowest-priced claims increased to the 25th percentile market price, spending would decline by 6.4%, and; ​
  • Spending would increase overall if the lowest half of prices all increased to their service’s median market price and the uppermost quarter of every service’s prices declined to the 75th percentile.

Hope springs eternal. The hospital transparency rule, which, is under legal challenge is set to take effect January 1, 2021. Today was the comment deadline for proposed HHS price transparency rule for health plans.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reviews food label changes that became applicable to most foods on grocery shelves on January 1, 2020. Check it out.