Vanita Rahman and Matthew Rees write:

Health care and health care policy were centerpieces of the 2020 presidential and congressional campaigns. It’s a shame that neither party focused on the underlying issue: the poor health of the American people, largely attributed to poor nutrition.

By many measures, the population of the United States is the unhealthiest of any high-income country despite spending much more money, as a share of the economy, on health care. The incidence of chronic disease is higher and life expectancy is lower.

Covid-19 has magnified the effects of Americans’ poor health. Those living with chronic disease are more likely to be hospitalized — and to die — with Covid-19 than those in good health. A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that 94% of those who have died from Covid-19 had an average of 2.6 additional conditions. A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that since May 10 the U.S. has had the highest per capita death rate from Covid-19 and other causes among 18 other high-income countries.

The health of Americans has been in decline for years. “The tragedy is not that the U.S. is losing a contest with other countries,” concluded the authors of a 2013 report sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, “but that Americans are dying and suffering from illness and injury at rates that are demonstrably unnecessary.” [Continue reading…]