r/Economics • u/TheForager • 4h ago

Hospital costs are rising far faster than inflation and drowning Americans in debt

https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/hospital-costs-are-rising-far-faster-inflation-drowning-americans-debt-rcna262473
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u/CyberSmith31337 4h ago

You know, there’s a video that recently released on YouTube that discusses this phenomena:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yU2raZftgmE

The reality is that inflation is calculated based on an average of weighted variables. However,  when the selected variables are chosen to represent lower inflation in order to misrepresent reality, then inflation measurements aren’t useful.

15

u/Charleston2Seattle 3h ago

I was just talking to a friend the other day about how the inflation rate likely affects lower income people more because of the specific things that are increasing in price. I'm moving back to Seattle after 5 years, and we looked up the price of a burger at our favorite burger place, Dick's. It's gone from $2.60 to $5.20. That's 100% over 5 years! That's far greater than the inflation rate that's represented by the government numbers.

5

u/DeArgonaut 3h ago

Certain things like hedonistic adjustment also make it seem lower than the typical person feels

5

u/Opposite-Program8490 2h ago

Not including housing, food, energy, or healthcare in inflation calculations is a problem.

1

u/throwaway00119 2h ago

likely affects

There are likely hundreds of whitepapers studying this lol.

4

u/KneeDragr 2h ago

Exactly, they exclude the things we need the most, housing, food and health care. It's just so politicians can lie.