Why the jump in non-COVID deaths?

Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on
LinkedIn
+

In November of last year, Pioneer warned about an “Impending Tsunami in Mortality from Traditional Diseases.”  We asked:

“did public health officials create such a climate of fear around COVID that they neglected to encourage people to visit their physicians and receive regular screenings from chronic conditions?”

The Pioneer report seems prescient, as the Wall Street Journal reported on February 23rd that life insurers had seen “a jump” in non-COVID death claims.

Actuaries for the life insurers speculated that the rise in non-COVID deaths were tied to

“delays in medical care as a result of lockdowns in 2020…and people’s fears of seeking out treatment.”

The Journal then editorialized that,

“it was as if the leaders of government health bureaucracies all forgot there were plenty of ways to die other than Covid infection.”

Get Updates On Our Healthcare Research and Events!

Browse Our Healthcare Content:

Shopping Hospital Value: Price Transparency Mandate Brings Market Forces to Medicine

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with Pioneer Institute's senior healthcare fellow Barbara Anthony about her recently released paper, Massachusetts Hospitals: Uneven Compliance with New Federal Price Transparency Law, and how price transparency can empower consumers to shop for better value and encourage hospitals to offer more competitive costs.

Survey Finds Spotty Compliance Among Hospitals with Federal Price Transparency Law

A 2019 federal law requires hospitals to make prices for 300 shoppable services available online in a “consumer-friendly format,” but a Pioneer Institute survey of 19 hospitals finds that information on discounted cash prices—the price most likely to be charged to consumers paying out of pocket—was unavailable at seven of those hospitals.

Right To Save: Paying Healthcare Consumers To Shop For Value

This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with healthcare policy expert Josh Archambault about the findings from his Cicero Institute report, The Right to Save: The Next Generation of Price Transparency. He outlines how to incentivize healthcare consumers to utilize price information to reduce out-of-pocket costs, and lower healthcare costs for everyone.

Is CHIA’s Drug Cost Data Reliable?

Earlier this year, the Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA) released its Annual Report on the Performance of the Massachusetts Health Care System for 2020.  The Massachusetts Legislature relies on CHIA data when considering bills to regulate drug costs and prices. The advocacy group Health Care for All reported that CHIA data showed prescription drug spending grew by 7.7 percent in 2020, more than twice the benchmark - but the most reliable data on prescription drugs indicates that spending in 2020 was essentially flat. 

Is this PBM tactic blocking healthcare access?

Utilization Management (UM) was originally a strategy designed to improve the safety, quality, and cost-effectiveness of physician prescribing. However, UM has grown exponentially over the last decade, becoming more a tactic for Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) to manage costs to benefit their bottom line.

Drug Price Control: Bad Medicine for Healthcare and Region

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with Dr. Bill Smith, Director of Pioneer Institute’s Life Sciences Initiative, about the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act on long-term health costs. They discuss the bill's unintended consequences, potential effect on the region’s vibrant pharmaceutical research and development sector, and what citizens can do about it.

The Realities Behind US Healthcare Spending

Healthcare policy is an all-encompassing term. It plays a role in every individual’s life; how it is curated, developed, and maintained has a significant long-term impact on the quality of life of any given community. It is critical that policymakers consistently adapt and amend healthcare policies in the ever-changing global pricing and affordability environment while providing funding support for optimal quality of care.

Healthcare dominates the job market.

/
Healthcare and social assistance are among the most important…