Healthcare workforce triples

The global health workforce tripled between 1990 and 2023, rising from 40.9 million health workers to 122.1 million, reports The Lancet Public Health. Women are 68.9% of all healthcare workers. 43.9% of doctors are women, as well as 80.7% of nurses and 96% of midwives. Women account for 71.4% of the growth in the healthcare workforce.

HealthDay adds: “The global health workforce has expanded since 1990, mainly due to an increase in female health workers, according to a study published online Aug. 18.” The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle studied the “composition and density of health workers by sex among 20 cadres for 204 countries and territories during 1990 to 2023.” “The researchers found there were 122.1 million health workers” across 20 categories “in 2023, representing an increase of 81.2 million (198.5 percent) relative to 1990; the number included 15.1 million doctors, 33.2 million nurses, 2.4 million midwives, and 7.6 million community health workers (CHWs).”

“U.S. health care spending in 2024 was $977 billion lower than the government projected it would be back in 2010. The authors attribute some of the gap between the projections and reality to technological innovations that have lowered the costs and improved the effectiveness of certain treatments,” notes The Doomslayer.

Medicaid spending has risen faster than projected back in 2010, as more people ended up on Medicaid than projected (Obamacare has cost taxpayers more than its architects predicted). But private healthcare spending — and overall healthcare spending — have risen less than projected back in 2010, due to innovations that cut costs.

Some medical procedures (like cosmetic procedures) have gotten cheaper over time, because they are not covered by government healthcare programs — so patients shop around for the best deal, and doctors compete based on price, cutting prices and doing things to cut costs and prices. Hospital and medical costs paid for by the government have gotten more expensive in comparison, because patients have less incentive to shop around or look for the best deal if they are not paying for a medical procedure themselves.

Obesity costs our healthcare system a lot, especially on Medicaid. America is one of the ten fattest countries in the world, but it has stopped getting fatter, due to weight loss drugs. ““Gallup polling finds that self-reported obesity in the US has been falling since 2022, an encouraging finding that is broadly consistent with CDC data showing a small recent dip in measured obesity rates.”

The weight-loss drug Ozempic may be helpful not just in fighting obesity and diabetes, but also in slowing the effects of Alzheimer’s disease.

Airlines are expected to save a large amount of money on fuel if passengers slim down.

Expanding government involvement in healthcare worsened the budget deficit and increased the national debt. Obamacare supporters claimed that by “nationalizing the student lending industry…Obamacare would raise $58 billion in revenue over a decade,” noted the Washington Examiner. But it didn’t. Student loans had become a money-loser, even before Biden delayed student loan repayments at taxpayer expense. As Ben Johnson of the Acton Institute noted in 2022, a “Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released in July found the Department of Education predicted that student loans would generate $114 billion for the federal government; they instead lost $197 billion — a $311 billion error, mostly due to incorrect analysis.”