Life Expectancy

[Arkady]

I was looking at life expectancy stats as part of a discussion here and came across this chart:

One thing that really stuck out is how steady life expectancy has been over the last seventy years -- there's been a gradual improvement, with no big gains or losses in any given year. Part of that is related to the size of the country. The bigger it gets, the more that localized events like Hurricane Katrina or 9/11 get averaged out to the point they don't show up. But there's a lot more going on than that. The CDC was founded in 1947 and that likely made a big difference, along with various other governmental programs designed to control disease (Polio vaccination, anti-Malaria efforts in the late 40s and early 50s, etc.) As much as we worry about crime waves, natural disasters, and terrorists, disease is the kind of killer that can actually take out enough people to impact life expectancies in a noticeable way in the big picture. If you look at chart above, you're unlikely to be able to spot the wars in Korea and Vietnam, by the shape of the chart, much less various terrorist incidents or smaller wars. But you'll spot the flu pandemic of 1918 very easily.

 

[marvin martian]

Random "whoring for the government" post of the day!

 

[as seen on tv]

so to sum up - we were sold obamacare based on a lie - that our life expectancies were substandard, and obamacare would improve them?

why have life expectancies gone down beginning with the Obama administration?

 

[RickWA]

Random "whoring for the government" post of the day!

Correct. As always, he bends knee to his holiest of entities, the Almighty State. Pure reverence for the state (and for the Democratic Party, the party of expansionist interventionist government) in his every post.

 

[Arkady]

so to sum up - we were sold obamacare based on a lie - that our life expectancies were substandard, and obamacare would improve them?

Relative to wealthy nations in general, our life expectancy really was sub-standard before Obamacare -- 49th in the world. And it was getting worse, with the US falling down the rankings over time. But, fortunately, that's changed since then. The last CIA World Factbook life expectancy ranking had us up seven spots to 42nd in the world.... passing by some fellow wealthy nations like Denmark, along the way.

 

[Arkady]

Correct. As always, he bends knee to his holiest of entities, the Almighty State. Pure reverence for the state (and for the Democratic Party, the party of expansionist interventionist government) in his every post.

I understand that it makes you uncomfortable to think that government might actually have a role in the improvement. But why not test your theories against the actual real-world data? For example, when you look at the list of countries by per capita public spending, and the list of countries by life expectancy, what do you see? Are the places that have achieved the best lifespans, like Japan, Italy, Sweden, etc., countries with low or high government spending? And how about the countries with very low government spending, like those of Central Africa. How is life expectancy doing in those places?

 

[Spamature]

I was looking at life expectancy stats as part of a discussion here and came across this chart:

One thing that really stuck out is how steady life expectancy has been over the last seventy years -- there's been a gradual improvement, with no big gains or losses in any given year. Part of that is related to the size of the country. The bigger it gets, the more that localized events like Hurricane Katrina or 9/11 get averaged out to the point they don't show up. But there's a lot more going on than that. The CDC was founded in 1947 and that likely made a big difference, along with various other governmental programs designed to control disease (Polio vaccination, anti-Malaria efforts in the late 40s and early 50s, etc.) As much as we worry about crime waves, natural disasters, and terrorists, disease is the kind of killer that can actually take out enough people to impact life expectancies in a noticeable way in the big picture. If you look at chart above, you're unlikely to be able to spot the wars in Korea and Vietnam, by the shape of the chart, much less various terrorist incidents or smaller wars. But you'll spot the flu pandemic of 1918 very easily.

Is that huge drop the influenza epidemic ? Then it all shaky during during the depression and the war.

so to sum up - we were sold obamacare based on a lie - that our life expectancies were substandard, and obamacare would improve them?

why have life expectancies gone down beginning with the Obama administration?

Then you have the heroin epidemic taking its slice on overall longevity today.


Looks like violence, poverty, and disease are the eternal big 3.

 

[Drumcollie]

I was looking at life expectancy stats as part of a discussion here and came across this chart:

One thing that really stuck out is how steady life expectancy has been over the last seventy years -- there's been a gradual improvement, with no big gains or losses in any given year. Part of that is related to the size of the country. The bigger it gets, the more that localized events like Hurricane Katrina or 9/11 get averaged out to the point they don't show up. But there's a lot more going on than that. The CDC was founded in 1947 and that likely made a big difference, along with various other governmental programs designed to control disease (Polio vaccination, anti-Malaria efforts in the late 40s and early 50s, etc.) As much as we worry about crime waves, natural disasters, and terrorists, disease is the kind of killer that can actually take out enough people to impact life expectancies in a noticeable way in the big picture. If you look at chart above, you're unlikely to be able to spot the wars in Korea and Vietnam, by the shape of the chart, much less various terrorist incidents or smaller wars. But you'll spot the flu pandemic of 1918 very easily.

I blame preservatives. I hope liberals eat organic.

 

[Constitutional Sheepdog]

Random "whoring for the government" post of the day!

No not really what Arkady doesn't realize is I started a thread similar that showed since obamacare life expectancy dropped

 

[Constitutional Sheepdog]

Is that huge drop the influenza epidemic ? Then it all shaky during during the depression and the war.


Then you have the heroin epidemic taking its slice on overall longevity today.


Looks like violence, poverty, and disease are the eternal big 3.

So what you are saying all those democrat programs to help the poor hasn't worked? WOW News flash Republicans already knew this.

 

[Drumcollie]

I understand that it makes you uncomfortable to think that government might actually have a role in the improvement. But why not test your theories against the actual real-world data? For example, when you look at the list of countries by per capita public spending, and the list of countries by life expectancy, what do you see? Are the places that have achieved the best lifespans, like Japan, Italy, Sweden, etc., countries with low or high government spending? And how about the countries with very low government spending, like those of Central Africa. How is life expectancy doing in those places?

Why is Spain, Australia, Italy, Israel, two of which are poorly run governments with Higher life expectancies than Sweden?

How did Sweden drop from number 6 in 2000 to number 9 in 2016?

What are the aforementioned countries doing that Sweden is not?

Why was their increase in life expectancy so much greater?

In 1990 Sweden was number 3 in the world for Life expectancy...Is the a randomness to this or is there a reason why Sweden fails when compared to other not so developed nations?

 

[Drumcollie]

so to sum up - we were sold obamacare based on a lie - that our life expectancies were substandard, and obamacare would improve them?

why have life expectancies gone down beginning with the Obama administration?

Killarycare to Obamacare...Liberalism is deadly.

 

[RickWA]

Relative to wealthy nations in general, our life expectancy really was sub-standard before Obamacare -- 49th in the world. And it was getting worse, with the US falling down the rankings over time. But, fortunately, that's changed since then. The last CIA World Factbook life expectancy ranking had us up seven spots to 42nd in the world.... passing by some fellow wealthy nations like Denmark, along the way.

Any normal human would be embarrassed at the full-service you render your Democrat overlords. Good grief.

 

[RickWA]

I understand that it makes you uncomfortable to think that government might actually have a role in the improvement. But why not test your theories against the actual real-world data? For example, when you look at the list of countries by per capita public spending, and the list of countries by life expectancy, what do you see? Are the places that have achieved the best lifespans, like Japan, Italy, Sweden, etc., countries with low or high government spending? And how about the countries with very low government spending, like those of Central Africa. How is life expectancy doing in those places?

Just keep those knee pads handy, Jez.

 

[Spamature]

So what you are saying all those democrat programs to help the poor hasn't worked? WOW News flash Republicans already knew this.

Influenza and war ? Nope there are no Democratic of Republican programs that will prevent deaths due to either.

 

[Constitutional Sheepdog]

Influenza and war ? Nope there are no Democratic of Republican programs that will prevent deaths due to either.

You posted this.
"Then you have the heroin epidemic taking its slice on overall longevity today.
Looks like violence, poverty, and disease are the eternal big 3."
That's a no go on the slide and dance for you.

 

[as seen on tv]

Relative to wealthy nations in general, our life expectancy really was sub-standard before Obamacare -- 49th in the world. And it was getting worse, with the US falling down the rankings over time. But, fortunately, that's changed since then. The last CIA World Factbook life expectancy ranking had us up seven spots to 42nd in the world.... passing by some fellow wealthy nations like Denmark, along the way.

the negligible life expectancy differences between the USA and EU nations is explained by a single "statistical trick" which those nations use. They don't count a birth as "viable/live" unless the baby is still alive after 30 days.

America includes deaths of infants in its record keeping. And America attempts more heroics to keep premature infants breathing than socialized medicine in places like the UK allows.

 

[as seen on tv]

Why is Spain, Australia, Italy, Israel, two of which are poorly run governments with Higher life expectancies than Sweden?

How did Sweden drop from number 6 in 2000 to number 9 in 2016?

What are the aforementioned countries doing that Sweden is not?

Why was their increase in life expectancy so much greater?

In 1990 Sweden was number 3 in the world for Life expectancy...Is the a randomness to this or is there a reason why Sweden fails when compared to other not so developed nations?

I'm guessing the infamous predilection for suicide in Sweden could be a factor.

 

[Arkady]

No not really what Arkady doesn't realize is I started a thread similar that showed since obamacare life expectancy dropped

It hasn't, though. Basically, what happened is life expectancy went up for years, which the right-wing press mostly ignored, then fell for one year, which they trumpeted far and wide, leaving those who rely on the right-wing press with the false impression that it was a net decline rather than a net increase in life expectancy.

Obamacare passed in 2010, so you can compare life expectancy pre-Obamacare (78.5 in 2009) to the most recent reading (78.8 in 2015).

Of course that's not the really interesting thing. It's hard to tell whether life expectancy is rising due to a change in policy, or just due to underlying improvements in medicine, etc. So, the real test is how we're doing relative to other advanced nations. For many years before Obamacare, US life expectancy was rising more slowly than for most other advanced nations, causing us to slide down the international rankings, even as our healthcare spending rose much faster than in the other nations. Not only were we an international disgrace, but we were falling further and further behind our peers. Since Obamacare was enacted, that has changed:

https://web.archive.org/web/2010031...ns/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html

As you can see, according to our own CIA's numbers, in 2009, we had the world's 49th-best life expectancy, behind the likes of Portugal and Denmark. Now look at today:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html

Not only did we halt the long-slide, we actually reversed it, climbing back up to the 43rd spot. We passed by Denmark, Portugal, and Gibraltar, among others. We also closed the gap between ourselves and the average wealthy nation. For example, in 2009, we died 0.56 years before the average EU resident, whereas by 2017 that was down to just 0.20 years. And, keep in mind, that improvement relative to our peers not only reversed years of sliding the other way, but it happened even as we lowered healthcare spending growth to much lower rates than before Obamacare.

 

[Arkady]

What are the aforementioned countries doing that Sweden is not?

I haven't studied Sweden closely, so I'm not sure. But with Swedes outliving us by about 2.1 years on average, whatever they're doing wrong, they're still kicking our ass, so I'd focus first on addressing our own problems.

However, if I had to guess,I'd guess that immigration has played a role. Sweden had a lot of immigrants come in from poorer countries that have much lower life expectancies, and they probably inherited some of the associated health problems. Swedish immigrants are mostly from ethnicities that have lower life expectancies than native Swedes. In the US, we have the opposite phenomenon, since most of our immigrants come from Latin America, and Hispanics have higher life expectancy in this country than the nation as a whole.