Thursday, October 26, 2017

'Mericans Sicker Than Before

One of the reasons offered for increasing the retirement age from 65 to 67 under the Reagan Administration and a Democratic Congress was that 'Mericans were expected to live longer in better health.  NOT.  A new study by the Society of Actuaries (those quants that calculate the odds for insurance companies) says that life expectancy for men and women has dropped by 1.2%, the first increase since 2005 and the first increase over one percentage since 1980. The decrease is attributed to the increase in eight of the ten leading causes of death shown in chart form here:
credit: World Socialist Website from National Vital Statistics System
note: CLRD is chronic lower respiratory disease (e.g. pneumonia)
Another study from the University of Michigan found that middle age workers ten years away from collecting Social Security are in poorer health than prior generations in their fifties. Inequality among seniors in 'Merica is almost the worst in the world. Only Mexico and Chile have worse inequality among thirty five member nations of the OECD (Organization for Cooperation and Development). In other words the rich are living comfortably and living longer while the not rich are working longer, dying younger, and living in pain and poor health.

So Trump supporters say: But the stock market hit a new high!!! US Person says: the only thing a booming market is proof of is that the plutocracy, which owns it, is getting richer at the expense of the rest of US. Of course plutocrats who are "dangerous to democracy" like Trump think lazy 'Mericans already live too long to be profitable. In the depressed coal mining county of McDowell male life expectancy is a miserable 63.9 years! McDowell joins such progressive countries like Haiti, Ghana and Papua New Guinea at the bottom of the longevity list.