During Thursday night’s debate, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump spent a lot of time trying to reduce the high cost of insulin.
But the back and forth over insulin prices hasn’t addressed the underlying problem that many Americans worry about: the exorbitant cost of health care.
“The United States is facing a health care affordability crisis and this stark fact was completely absent from the presidential debate,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University.
A February poll by KFF, a nonprofit that researches health policy issues, found that unexpected medical bills and health care costs top people’s list of financial concerns, with about three-quarters of the public saying they are at least somewhat worried about being able to pay unexpected medical bills or health care costs for themselves and their families.
“It was a huge turnaround and a miss,” Drew Altman, KFF’s president and CEO, said of the debate. “There was no meaningful focus on health care and, more importantly, health care costs, which is absolutely a huge concern for voters.”
People in the U.S. pay roughly twice as much for health care as any other country in the world, Gostin said, and yet the country’s health outcomes are inferior to those of most comparable countries.
In addition, health care costs in America continue to rise.
According to a report released this month from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, national health care spending, which includes spending on doctors, hospital services and prescription drug costs, is expected to grow to nearly $4.8 trillion by 2023. That’s faster than the expected growth of the overall economy.
Arthur Kaplanthe chief of medical ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City, said Biden and Trump’s focus on insulin was likely an appeal to the large core of voters with diabetes who have been calling for lower insulin costs for years. More than 8 million Americans rely on insulin to survive, according to the American Diabetes Association.
Still, Caplan says, the cost of insulin and medications in general is just one part of the overall health care system.
“It was a huge missed opportunity,” Caplan said. “Drug costs are a problem, but so are hospital costs and nursing home costs. Lowering drug prices will help, but it will not solve our cost problems by any means.”
There will be another opportunity, Altman said, for Biden and Trump to address health care costs during the next presidential debate, scheduled for September.
Outside of the debate stage, Altman said he expects Biden will continue to harp on health care costs because it’s a matter of the president having an advantage over Trump.
Another KFF poll released in May found that more independent voters trusted Biden over Trump when it came to many aspects of health care, including health care costs.
“Despite the fact that there has been little or no focus on it, it will be an ongoing focus for Biden and the Democrats,” Altman said. “I expect Trump to remain silent on this issue.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
