Preventable, premature deaths increased during pandemic
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An increase in suicides, drug overdoses and alcohol-induced deaths combined with an increase of people dying from treatable conditions led to historically high rates of premature deaths nationwide from 2019 to 2021, according to a new Commonwealth Fund Scorecard on State Health System Performance.
The big picture: Both health care access and life expectancy declined in the U.S. during that time despite record-low uninsured rates.
- The COVID-19 pandemic led to the death of more than 1 million Americans, but there was a record-high of more than 200,000 combined deaths from drug overdoses, alcohol and suicide in 2021 alone, according to the scorecard.
- The adult uninsured rate fell nationally from 13% in 2019 to 12% in 2021 when insurance subsidies authorized by Congress and states kept people on their Medicaid coverage.
- Commonwealth Fund researchers said the data points to the need for mental and behavioral health supports for adults.
Details: Massachusetts, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Vermont and Rhode Island had the top-performing health systems nationwide when researchers assessed measures of health care access and affordability, hospital use, and preventative health and treatment.
- Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Mississippi had the lowest-performing health systems in the Commonwealth Fund's rankings.
Historic inequities in health outcomes were also seen in the Commonwealth Fund's data.
- American Indian, Black and Hispanic Americans experienced the largest drop in life expectancy from 2019 to 2021, in part due to COVID-19 as well as deaths due cardiovascular events and strokes, which can sometimes be successfully treated.
Between the lines: Recovering from the pandemic is going to be difficult for state health care systems, especially as Medicaid redeterminations will potentially leave millions of people without coverage, the authors of the scorecard said during a news briefing.
