re: Health insurance rates set to soar for some in Louisiana

quote:

---

LINK

---

I don't think this is wrong, but I do question your interpretation.

Namely because of what this study(and others like it) do and do not actually show.

They do show that if you are focusing on bending the cost curve, there is only a very narrow sect of preventive care that is effective at this(vaccines, low-dose aspirin etc.) but there is a lot of preventive care that is cost effective(meaning that while they don't save money and only break even, they provide a lot of large additional benefits I.E. improve people's lives). A lot of preventive care is cost effective and it is in part why many private insurers still encourage it. They don't show that just treating things as they pop up is cheaper either. They show that compared to the baseline(what we currently do) current or additional preventive measures will not bend the cost curve downward much, if at all.

The other thing not focused on is the secondary benefits of a healthier populace. There are also a lot of macro and micro studies about the productivity increases from improving and maintaining a workforce's health level.