The opioid epidemic isn’t the only public-health crisis plaguing the US.
Americans are hitting the bottle harder than ever, according to a new study published by JAMA Psychiatry, posing new challenges for the US’s strained health-care system as local hospitals and first responders struggle with the spike in substance-abuse related maladies, including overdoses and alcohol poisoning that warrant urgent care.
With Obamacare firmly in the crosshairs of Republican lawmakers, the debate around U.S. healthcare is at a fever pitch.
While there is no shortage of opinions on the best route forward, Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins points out that the timeliness of the debate also gives us an interesting chance to dive into some of the numbers around healthcare – namely how people even get coverage in the first place.
HOW AMERICANS GET HEALTHCARE
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development just released its latest batch of data seeking to measure the quality of health care in each of its member states.
The rankings show that although the US spends more per capita on health care than any of the 34 other OECD member states, its average life expectancy of 78.8 years ranks is among the lowest found in the group, according to a Bloomberg analysis.
Authored by Michael Snyder via The American Dream blog,
Obamacare premiums have been exploding higher ever since the controversial legislation took over health insurance markets. And while many would say that another year of premium increases is a logical extrapolation of a predictable, multi-year trend resulting from a failed policy, others would like for you to believe that the massive (yet consistent) premium increases being proposed for the 2018 plan year are unique because they're Trump's fault.