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US Life Expectancy May Have Peaked
Hugh Pickens writes "Live Science reports that although life expectancy in the United States has risen to an all-time high of 77.9 years in 2007 up from 77.7 in 2006, gains in life expectancy may be pretty much over, as some groups — particularly people in rural locations are already stagnating or slipping in contrast to all other industrialized nations. Hardest hit are regions in the Deep South, along the Mississippi River, in Appalachia and also the southern part of the Midwest reaching into Texas. The culprits — largely preventable with better diet and access to medical services — are diabetes, cancers and heart disease caused by smoking, high blood pressure and obesity. What the new analysis reveals is the reality of two Americas, one on par with most of Europe and parts of Asia, and another no different than a third-world nation with the United States placing 41st on the 2008 CIA World Factbook list, behind Bosnia but still edging out Albania. 'Beginning in the early 1980s and continuing through 1999 those who were already disadvantaged did not benefit from the gains in life expectancy experienced by the advantaged, and some became even worse off,' says a report published in PLoS Medicine by a team led by Harvard's Majid Ezzati, adding that 'study results are troubling because an oft-stated aim of the US health system is the improvement of the health of "all people, and especially those at greater risk of health disparities.'"
They have stopped human aging from getting older before it blows up an economy with useless old people. Isn't this part of the US overhaul in health care - get rid of the old and sick because they are holding the herd back?
No "health care system" is going to be able to overcome the human propensity to make unhealthy lifestyle choices unless it forces people to bear the costs of those choices themselves.
"Think of the children."
Really? You're going with that?
This may sound heartless, but I'm trying to figure out where people feel they should be privileged to the best medical care in the world without having to pay for it or provide back to society an equal or greater benefit. Where is the incentive for people to succeed in life? If I didn't have to pay for health care, food, and shelter... I wouldn't have a job. There's no point in working in a boring job with no motivation to leave that job for something better. In order to do that, you have to better yourself, save money, and work toward that goal. If there are no more primal cares in life then there's no point listening to some other jackoff tell you how to do your job. Just quit and live off the government.
Living in a remote area has it's advantages and disadvantages. You have to wait longer for packages, might not get cable like everyone else, you might have to travel an hour or two for a good hospital or be able to hit a store at 2am, but the advantages range from peace and quiet, personal space, privacy, and many other things that most people might never have. So you make life decisions when you choose your surroundings. I hope this makes sense. I think too many people feel they deserve health care when they don't contribute as much as someone who works their tail off at three jobs to afford it themselves. They think that they can choose to live on the peak of a mountain and expect that a helicopter team be dispatched if they have a heart attack. What makes you more important than a person growing up in Downtown Megacity?
I also have to wonder where is it written that cancer (in an above poster's example) is the great plague of our world today? It's not a contagious problem even if it's fairly widespread so it's not like having it will bring forth the extinction of human kind. It will merely shorten the life expectancy of the person with this condition. They can't accept that diagnosis? It has to be someone other person's problem now? Where is it written that I have to give up my own incentive to take care of myself to help someone else? Honestly now...if I choose to save money, not buy an Escalade, Lexus, or Acura and drive around in a Miata, what makes a person that chooses to spend liberally more important than me that they can outright demand I pay for their lifestyle indirectly?
Mark my words, if I could not afford to pay for my medical treatment, I might ask close family for help but barring that, I would not ask a stranger to pay for my life. It's just not right. I would gladly accept death.
There ARE options in life, even if they are slowly being taken away. Too many people are in "Me" mode. They don't think about their children as long as they have something. Too many people have children that can't afford them, and too many people think someone else should pay for it. There are too many people that think their life is more important to Donald Trump's life because of some arbitrary reason.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
> Everything is more expensive in the ghetto because of crime rates, causing higher prices,
> local shortages, more dispair, fewer options, which feeds more crime, and so on. It's a
> self-sustaining cycle, heading downwards.
So why doesn't a 'community organizer' come along and do the one thing that would improve the situation? Organize the people to police their own area and cut the crime rate to managable levels, i.e. low enough the police aren't afraid to be on the streets after dark. Then when the area is safe, attract some businesses in and from there some industry. Then you have jobs and a hope for prosperity.
Never happens does it. Observe what community organizers actually do, for example what our God King did a few years ago. Does history record ONE act from his 'community organizing' days that had the principle result of helping the community instead of improving the political position of his chosen faction in the Chicago machine?
Thought experiment. Imagine we actually solved poverty. Who benefits politically? And there is your answer.
Democrat delenda est