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US Death Rate Rises, Health Officials Aren't Sure Why (nbcnews.com)
New submitter Ungrounded Lightning writes: According to The New York Times, the U.S. death rate has risen for the first time in more than a decade (or several decades if particular). The rise is across the whole population, though whites, especially the less educated among them, were recently (and separately) documented to be particularly hard hit. The article speculates about drug abuse (prescription as well as illegal), suicides, and Alzheimer's, though it notes that heart disease -- which had been consistently dropping -- has also risen. No mention was made of whether the cutover to Obamacare might have had some effect. The aging of the population was mentioned, though the rise is present even within particular age groups. The National Center for Health Statistics shows the adjusted death rate went up from 723 deaths per 100,000 people in 2014 to nearly 730 deaths per 100,000 in 2015. We do know that the suicide rate in the U.S. has surged to its highest level in almost three decades.
The stresses related to being poor.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
"She lost the will to live."
While that may sound mawkish, isn't it possible that many more folk are falling into depression, given the long-term downturn in the economy, the bleakness of the foreseeable future, and just a sense of "Man, nothing we can do will fix this?"
I'm sure I'm projecting a bit here, but... I'm also sure a lot of y'all are thinking exactly the same thing. There's an ugly mood about America right now, and the media and politicos are trying to paper it over.. but it's there. The numbers are lying. We're not as well as they tell us we are. To me it feels like the mid to late 70's did. Ugh, that was ugly. I was 10 going into 1980, and I could sense it was ugly.
So what I'm saying is.. maybe more people are dying off because things have been rotten for a couple of decades, and there's no end in sight?
Could just be me, though. I'm a pessimist by nature and by training. Meteorology and then IT? Yeah. Expect the worst, always =o)
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Yeah I think this is by far the biggest "douche vs turd" election I've ever witnessed, and I can't even fathom how it could possibly get even worse than this. Seriously, this year politics in America has probably hit rock bottom.
... everyone dies eventually, and we are maybe just witnessing the "older generation who was the first to benefit from those progresses" starting to die.
But the death rate within each age group went up. Ageing population was already corrected for.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Too late. People believe only the first thing they read or something that its into their belief system.
The people, especially whites, are being punished for the failed social doctrine to which they have been subject. They are too hard to please; they need more resources to do work than immigrants from the third world. They expect a quality of life that "they don't deserve" according to our leaders and people who don't have any real problems in their lives in general ("they're not me so fuck them" syndrome).
The situation boils down to the simple fact that we have incompetent leaders that are incapable of mobilizing our human resources because they live in a bubble and can't relate to anything they don't have first-hand experience in, which is not much. They are used to having people do all of that for them, but their social doctrine has seen that all of those people have disappeared.
They've milked the cow too dry: the worst aspect is that the world wars damaged the population severely by disrupting the traditional transference of knowledge, habit, and experience; too many kids grew up without fathers and the media failed to pick up the pieces.
If throwing money at the problem by making an exaggerated effort to solve it with whatever devices happen to be lying around doesn't work immediately, as was the case with the media, our leaders find the problem to be impossibly difficult to solve. The quality of true innovation has escaped them from generation after generation of soft living; they completely rely on others that they can entice with wealth to do everything for them. They have inherited a system that they very barely can keep track of and have completely forgotten how it was made. They have lost the characteristics that allowed their ancestors to make it to begin with.
If they can't solve the puzzle, then, like the spoiled rotten idiot children they are, they start attacking it. See: the recent "recession". It is simply the rich robbing everyone who isn't working in the industries with the most growth. Squeezing people dry until there's nothing left to shed but their very lives. This ensures that people are living day-to-day and cannot organize to do something to help themselves (against their leaders' interests), like enact a revolution (like the German Third Reich).
Maybe the reason is that the USAians are working harder and longer than before, and because of the always-present stress about making ends meet.
Perhaps some unions or welfare system would be nice to have?
Yeah I think this is by far the biggest "douche vs turd" election I've ever witnessed, and I can't even fathom how it could possibly get even worse than this. Seriously, this year politics in America has probably hit rock bottom.
If I may speak for a second on behalf of everyone in the rest of the world...
America, you have just shy of 325 million residents. I don't know how many of those are natural-born residents eligible to run for US President, but I assume the percentage is fairly high. Let's say at least 275 million people. How is it that from such a huge number that these are the best people you could come up with???
You guys really need to dig deeper for political talent. We in the outside world are getting worried about you if the current crop of clowns is the best you can find!
Yaz
Why is the parent modded as "insightful"? It's full of bullshit.
The parent didn't articulate his point as well as he might have, choosing a poor example with the price of food. However, even with the commodity example he's not wholly wrong. In the decades since 1978, increases in productivity in the US economy have gone overwhelmingly to the top income quintile and since the Great Recession of 2008, which accelerated these trends, to the top 10% and top 1% respectively. Wages have stagnated as generations of ordinary working people have shared little in these gains for 37+ years now. Moreover, the cost of key goods which many middle class people buy, including health care and college education, have skyrocketed. The result is a shrinking middle class which feels increasingly pressured, squeezed and pinched by high costs and incomes that haven't kept up, even though multiple family members are working harder and more hours than ever before. You cannot deny that this is an issue, the evidence is overwhelming. Indeed, all of the 2016 presidential candidates are talking about it. They may disagree on what to do about it or how to fix it, but almost nobody questions the existence of the problem.
Not that easy. Out of 275 citizens how many can afford a political campaign?
If you are not rich or have backing of the rich, you don't count.
How is it that from such a huge number that these are the best people you could come up with???
We didn't come up with them. This is being done to us, not for us or by us.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I know more people who have lost their healthcare as a result of Obamacare than who have gotten health care who did not have it before. Then again, I know more working class folks than non-working who can get the biggest subsidies.
That's just anecdotal of course.
Less anecdotal is that health care costs have risen considerably, and that even if one has insurance under Obamacare, the cost of getting sick is high (look at deductables and out-of-pocket maximums of the various tiers).
So when do the armed people take to the streets and use their guns to take back power?
After missing three meals.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If you don't know why you aren't happy, then change.
Nothing like a person who knows nothing about depression giving medical advice.
Like telling a dead person to "walk it off".
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Pre-Obamacare single adults couldn't get on Medicare regardless of income. I have two friends with medical conditions that prevent them from working who used to carry around the letter telling them they were denied because they got tired of folks like you convinced that it was somehow their fault they didn't have the medicine they needed to stay alive. Telling yourself Medicare was taking care of these people might make you feel better but it doesn't make it true.
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Or you can be like Bernie. Fuck, for once, there is a worthy, honest candidate, who really stands by his principles, who is not in a pocket of any corporations, who has a long history of doing the right thing, instead of going with the popular opinion of the time, and a lot of experience with politics. And he is still losing to Hillary because of the rigged democratic party (superdelegates) and a perceived "socialist" boogieman bullshit.