Life Expectancy

Your Life Expectancy will have a lot to do with Your Life Expectancy under the Affordable Care Act.

And thereby hangs a tale.

Early in my career I owned a dental practice two blocks behind the United States Supreme Court building in the residential neighborhood of Capitol Hill in Washington DC.

I enjoyed caring for many patients from the US Congress, their Staffs, and the nearby headquarters of the offices of the Department of Health and Human Services.

I noted the recent passing of my good friend of those and succeeding years, Anne Scitovsky, alev ha sholem, a health economist.  Anne and I had many long discussions about her research-both published and unpublished.

One of the embarrassments for the HHS apparatchiks she uncovered was the failure of their attempt to lower Doctors feesby subsidizing Medical Education with Federal money directly to medical schools for increasing the number of medical students in their classes.  The idea was that increased competition of more Docs would force them to lower their fees.

After a few years of these subsidies, Anne’s research revealed that fees were as high as they always had been, because Doctors Fees were not subject to competition.  Every MD determined what tests and procedures were appropriate and provided the necessary services to yield their proper compensation.  Graduating more Docs simply increased medical spending by generating more fee-for-service procedures.

Anne’s earlier research on the Medical Expenses of a Person’s Final Year was her Signature Study and is the most frequently referenced.  Her surprising finding was that about 25% of all US health expenditures were made for expenses incurred the year people died.

This 25% of all US health spending is the “low hanging fruit” of health care savings.  Policies affecting the final year of life expectancy can yield enormous savings in the National Medical Bill.

That’s why I was very interested that the American Board of Internal Medicine.  The Foundation also advising that expensive drugs should be withheld if the patient’s life expectancy is too short to justify the expenditure.

Everyone's life espectancy diminishes everyday. Which procedures will be withheld and How Old is Too Old? will be determined by a committee.

My friend, Anne Scitovsky, died at age 96 years, peacefully in her home with family members around her, on January 16, 2012,  and thus was spared having to witness how the Architects of  ObamaCare are using her research.