"In January, millions of Americans may drop their health insurance as premiums skyrocket following the Trump administration's decision to end federal subsidies that helped some 20 million people afford insurance on the Obamacare marketplaces. Earlier this year, Republicans in Congress agreed to cut more than $850bn from the 10-year budgets of Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income people, and the Chip health insurance program for children, in order to pay for some tax cuts."
"OpenAI's Sam Altman invested $180m in Retro Biosciences, which hopes to reprogram ageing cells. Tech billionaires from Google's former CEO Eric Schmidt and Sun Microsystems' Vinod Khosla have sunk hundreds of millions into NewLimit, which is trying to reverse cell ageing. Meta's Mark Zuckerberg a few weeks ago reshaped his philanthropic foundation to focus on the intersection of biology and AI to eventually cure all disease."
"A quick glance at the state of Americans' health will tell you this mix of priorities is not ideal. American average life expectancy in 2023 was shorter than it was in 2010. It has fallen way below not just the lifespan of people in affluent nations in the European Union, Japan or Canada. Average life expectancy at birth in the US is now shorter than that of Albania and Czechia, Chile and Panama."
Federal subsidies that helped some 20 million people afford Obamacare plans have ended, threatening premium-driven coverage losses in January. Congress approved cuts exceeding $850bn to Medicaid and CHIP budgets to finance tax cuts, putting an additional $500bn for Medicare at risk under budget rules. Concurrently, wealthy investors and tech billionaires are pouring billions into startups aiming to extend or reverse ageing, including major investments and philanthropic pivots toward biology and AI. US average life expectancy fell since 2010 and now lags many developed and some smaller nations, despite extraordinarily high healthcare spending and a profit-driven medical industry.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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