As long as U.S. mortality rates continue to be an object of interest, it is worth considering the extent to which activities of the federal government have the potential to influence such rates. Congress regularly passes laws pertaining to health care that are enacted, while federal agencies have the responsibility of specifying in detailed language exactly how such laws should be implemented. An excellent source for discovering what unfolds in the sphere of regulations is the Federal Register, the official journal of the federal government. Published every weekday, except on federal holidays, it contains government agency rules, proposed rules, and public notices. Previous research speculates that some regulations are counterproductive in the sense that they increase (rather than decrease) mortality risk, but few empirical studies have measured the extent to which this phenomenon holds across the regulatory system as a whole. A study described in the March 2022 issue of the journal Risk Analysis was intended to estimate the effect of U.S. federal regulation on state-level mortality.
Investigators found that a 1% increase in federal regulation of state economies is associated with an increase in an index of state mortality of between 0.53% and 1.35%. The findings are robust to the form of mortality measure, choice of covariates, and the inclusion/exclusion of various regions, states, and industries. They also provided an update of the “cost-per-life saved cutoff,” which is the counterproductive risk threshold for expenditures. Financial outlays in excess of $38.6 million (2019 dollars) per life saved can be expected to increase mortality risk. Examples are provided of how unintended consequences of regulations can increase mortality in some cases. Fuel efficiency regulations have resulted in some automakers producing smaller cars, which can be more dangerous in an accident. The increased cost of flying as a result of Department of Homeland Security regulations may have induced individuals to drive instead, thereby increasing traffic accidents. Also, if individual expenditures on health are at all effective at reducing mortality risk and if regulatory costs are sizeable, it follows that regulatory costs induce some deaths. By extension, even regulations with a primary aim of reducing mortality can have the opposite effect if costs are excessive relative to benefits.