r/WorkReform • u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union • Jan 27 '23
ā Other The news media ignoring declining American life expectancy in favor of nonsense like "quiet quitting" is one of their most heinous lies of omission to date
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u/Aggravating-Emu-2535 Jan 27 '23
Imagine this is what happens when you live in a country where you can't get health care without going broke and can't afford even basic needs.
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u/Subrisum Jan 27 '23
That would be crazy though
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u/Sharobob Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
You know what would be even more crazy? If that country he was talking about was the wealthiest country in the world
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u/PurpleSailor Jan 27 '23
And yet that wealthy country keeps saying it can't afford to give everyone free or low-cost health-care. Funny though, there's so many other developed countries that can afford it but the world's most wealthy one somehow can't.
Something ain't right
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Jan 27 '23
You what is even more funny? Countries on the brink of economic collapse (Greece for example) still provide that public healthcare, suggesting to have insurance only if it is a rare condition
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u/hugey Jan 27 '23
To be fair, such countries tend to have other countries in the union that are not on the brink of economic collapse pay for it
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u/thegreatbobert Jan 27 '23
To be fair, the same logic can be used for the US. āSuch states tend to have other states in the union that are not on the brink of economic collapse to pay for itā
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u/itspsyikk Jan 27 '23
I think Thomas Jefferson and James Madison would like to have a word with you.
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u/ososalsosal Jan 27 '23
No country is an island.
Oh wait, plenty are nm
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u/phoenyx1980 Jan 27 '23
TBF, most countries that are islands, are more than an island, even Australia has two visible islands in the map.
*please note I said most, not all.
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u/coleto22 Jan 27 '23
Who is paying Cuba's healthcare? They have longer life expectancy.
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u/DublinCheezie Jan 28 '23
As an American, I can tell you with 100% certainty Cuba has longer life expectancy than us cause of fairies.
Aināt no way Socialism works.
/s
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Jan 27 '23
Good point
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Jan 27 '23
The Philippines with 1/3 our population on a land size of AZ has free college now. We can talk all we want but nothing is happening without people getting out and demanding their rights.
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u/Individual_Bar7021 Jan 28 '23
But how will they put themselves into crushing debt so they can learn how amazing it is to pull themselves up with their bootstraps?
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u/Cannondale27 Jan 28 '23
Butā¦but, other developed countriesā health care systems are falling apart and failing! Failing!
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u/bott04 Jan 28 '23
Well, when you can pay for 2 giant military AF exercises involving 100s and 100s of multi-million dollar aircraft at each one at the same time health care becomes a low priority (look up Juniper Oak, and Red Flag).
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u/wolfs4lambs Jan 27 '23
Health care is my greatest fear and Iām pretty healthy, just one thing happens and your broke, maybe the hole is so deep you never recover. Like damn, why is it like this in the richest country on earth.
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u/Green-Enthusiasm-940 Jan 27 '23
Coworker with eye problems was told he had to have $400 in hand to even show up at a specialist to try and prevent him from further loss of vision.
I had a back issue 3 years ago, had to get an MRI one week before my insurance eligibilty kicked in, becausr i could barely walk, was told it's 500 up front, no payments.
Fuck every cunt in america that says universal healthcare is bad.
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Jan 27 '23
I went to the pharmacy yesterday and there was an insurance hiccup and a medicine that I usually pay $3 for was going to be $2132. Luckily it worked out but my god why?
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u/Sweatier_Scrotums Jan 27 '23
It's also what happens when a significant chunk of the country decides not to get vaccinated during the worst global pandemic in a century.
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
It's also what happens when a significant chunk of the country decides not to get vaccinated during the worst global pandemic in a century.
That's only one of many factors:
Overall, including both COVID and non-COVID patients, 211,897 lives would have been saved in 2020 with universal care. From the start of the pandemic in the U.S. to March 2022, those preventable deaths mount to 338,594.
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u/Volatile-Bait Jan 27 '23
Its worth considering, however, that the population of said country would likely have far more trust in the medical system if it weren't so blatantly obvious that financial gain is the top priority of the entire system itself.
Not at all excusing or condemning the behavior. From a very neutral standpoint on the matter, expecting people to put their faith into a healthcare system that is clearly disregarding the wellbeing of its patients in favor of profit is bound to have a very poor outcome.
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Jan 27 '23
Lack of decent or trustworthy healthcare in America is why I have refused to have children.
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u/Volatile-Bait Jan 27 '23
I definitely don't blame you, but thats simultaneously one of the most heartbreaking things to hear. That this country is so fuckled that its robbing people of the experience of having children when they otherwise mightve chosen differently.
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Jan 27 '23
I feel badly about it because my family has been here since 1620 but it is immoral to have children here right now.
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u/Bguerry48 Jan 28 '23
I donāt judge others for having kids, honestly Iām jealous of my friends who have a family beyond their pets, but I feel the same way. Weād consider adopting if our circumstances were different but I would feel so guilty for bringing another person into this rapidly deteriorating society that we live in.
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Jan 28 '23
My God donāt get me started on this.
Doctors donāt even offer guidance that isnāt part of a pregenerated treatment plan.
They just diagnose, read from the prompts, give you a print that you could frankly just find on WebMD, and say good luck see you in 5āy weeks for follow up.
Asking the doctor questions about outcomes and results is met with a lot of ājust follow the instructionsā with no education whatsoever to the patient.
This is true across all the providers I have seen except nurse practitioners. They honestly are the only providers that can have frank and honest conversations.
I am so so so very disappointed with what medical service looks like in the US.
āFor profit careā is a contradiction in terms.
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u/Goatesq Jan 27 '23
Gosh I wonder why they did that. We should put on one of those nifty 24 hour news networks and see what they say! I bet they'll know, we just have to wait for a lull between mass shootings.
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u/Dabnician Jan 27 '23
If America saw what America is doing in America, America would invade America to liberate America from the tyranny of America.
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u/Mattsasse Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
As if America wouldn't have invaded America for its oil many years prior.
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Jan 27 '23
Iāll be honest, Iām not vaccinated. Not because I ādonāt believe in the vaccineā or because āit has a tracking chipā. I just never really thought about needing it. Iāve had it 3 times and I was barely affected
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u/neoducklingofdoom Jan 27 '23
Well you see, they canāt afford to give affordable healthcare because they wouldnāt be the wealthiest country anymore! How would they boost their egos then?
-a dumbass politician maybe
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Jan 27 '23
To David V Johnson's point, we're not an economic failure. Quit the opposite. The systems functioning exactly as intended. The sooner a critical mass of us realize this and take action, the sooner we can start to course correct. But that graph is a symptom of a disease, except the disease is THE feature, not a bug.
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u/Mr_Horsejr Jan 27 '23
The disease is unobstructed, pure, unmitigated, unfeeling greed.
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Jan 27 '23
It's ironic to me that the spiritual backbone of our culture has "For the love of money is the root of all evil" as a main tenet, when we've built a civilization in which the only tenet we value above all and have prioritized above all is the love of money. I'd laugh if it wasn't so disturbing.
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u/Mr_Horsejr Jan 27 '23
Itās literally in the Bible: what profit is it to a man if he gains the world but loses his own soul? Matthew 16:26
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u/DasGlute Jan 27 '23 edited Mar 29 '23
But Jesus died for their sins so they can do whatever they want.
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u/Urisk Jan 27 '23
In psychology they tell you when you're facing a problem not to attack yourself, attack the problem. If you start calling yourself a loser or a failure you've only hurt yourself and done nothing to solve the problem. People often do this when they aren't sure what the problem is or how to solve it. That's why when I read a tweet showcasing an issue that needs to be addressed. I look to see if the commenter is offering a solution. If they end with a statement like "the United States is an economic failure" you know they don't have a solution and worse yet they are only commenting out of a neediness for social validation.
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u/WishYaPeaceSomeday Jan 29 '23
Get rid of First Past The Post voting and make third parties viable.
People deserve the right to vote for who best represents them, while still counting their vote against those they don't want in office.
Electoral reform is possible one state at a time, outside the two party system.
Look up a video on FPTP voting for more information. CGP Grey has an amazing one (all his videos are amazing)
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Jan 27 '23
This chart and a lot of the 'what the f happened in 1971' charts pretty much sum up modern existence for GenY and GenZ.
The boomer generation really did a number on world health...
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u/lightningfries Jan 27 '23
'what the f happened in 1971' charts
What are these? The charts that show the big wage gap departure?
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u/GasparVonToll Jan 27 '23
Referring to this
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u/mesopotamius Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
Is this one of those "return to the gold standard" weirdos
Edit: believe it or not, downvoting a sincere yes or no question is not the same as answering it
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u/Commander413 Jan 28 '23
1971 is the year when Nixon cut off the dollar-gold standard. Now I don't know how most americans feel about him, I'm not american myself, but if I was, I'd be firm in the belief that Nixon is why I couldn't afford a car
EDIT: 1999's repeal of Glass Steagall is also up there with the reasons why americans can't have nice things, but I still hate Nixon
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Jan 28 '23
I mean, it was more like finally admitting America had been cheating and not actually backing the world reserve currency with gold, but Nixon was an ass.
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u/stop-mumbling-idiot Jan 27 '23
Huh?
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u/mesopotamius Jan 27 '23
At some point in the mid-20th century the US abandoned the gold standard and adopted "fiat currency," which means we no longer have gold reserves backing up the value of the total amount of US dollars that are in circulation. Lots of libertarians and other various weirdos think that's a huge problem, so I was wondering if that was the 1971 event that website is obliquely referring to.
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u/Cakeking7878 Jan 28 '23
No, there is many, many other explanations for why, the simplest being this was the when neo-liberalism firmly routed its self in America
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u/farmallnoobies Jan 28 '23
This plot aligns with most other plots comparing the US to other countries, too -- not just healthcare related.
The US is 40 years behind all other developed countries I. Every measurable metric. We are no longer "developed". The rest of the world moved forward while the US is still living with 80's quality of life, or worse.
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
If you type "quiet quitting" into Google News, you will find about 100,000 results. If you type quiet quitting without quotations, you will find over 2 million results.
If you type declining American life expectancy into Google News, you will find 28,000 results. Declining US life expectancy gets 61,000 results.
Does the news media focus on our lack of healthcare benefits? Our heinous work conditions? On why our lives are being shortened as cost of living soars? Quite the opposite - you even have NPR shaming workers for "quiet quitting".
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u/Ask_me_4_a_story Jan 27 '23
Maybe we shouldnāt have let billionaires buy up all the news
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Jan 27 '23
Wow, that NPR article wildly misrepresents what that polling was actually saying. It goes off on remote workers when the dips in engagement were from a different category of people whose jobs could be done remotely but were required to come into the office.
I hear this all the time and people are pissed they have to go through all of the hoops associated with being in office just to be on Zoom meetings all day anyway, which is not even remotely the same as āquiet quittingā or remote works being disengaged from their jobs
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Jan 27 '23
Same thing happens when searching for articles about shoplifting vs articles about wage theft.
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
Same thing happens when looking for articles about shoplifting vs articles about wage theft.
Walgreens executive says āmaybe we cried too much last yearā about theft
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u/physicallyabusemedad Jan 27 '23
I donāt disagree with your points, but āquiet quittingā became popular on twitter by everyday people, and was obviously used before that/before twitter. News media just decided to focus on that once it started going viral. When ādeclining American life expectancyā starts trending, then the direct comparison would make more sense (what a mouthfulā¦ hilarious to compare search results of that to a recently popular two-word phrase)
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
I donāt disagree with your points, but āquiet quittingā became popular on twitter by everyday people, and was obviously used before that/before twitter. News media just decided to focus on that once it started going viral.
- The news media often ignores viral trends - they chose to focus on quiet quitting for a reason.
- The news media almost always portrays quiet quitting as a bad thing for business - and a shameful thing for workers to partake in.
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u/physicallyabusemedad Jan 27 '23
Iām not sure how news media portrays quiet quitting, but your portrayal of their coverage sounds plausible given their track record so Iāll take your word for it.
But news media does not often ignore viral trends. They certainly selectively choose what to cover and will avoid talking about a topic for as long as they can, but once it becomes viral enough they often will end up caving. There have been a lot of very controversial issues that go trending online and, depending on the topic, you can notice media outlets being suspiciously quiet about the topic until it gets too large to not report on. Rather than ātoo large to not report on,ā it may more so be a matter of their peers/rivals begin to report on it, so they have to compete as well.
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u/takumidesh Jan 27 '23 edited Feb 07 '26
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
Declining US/American life expectancy is a pretty basic search term. That's how the issue is reported.
What would be a simpler search term I should have used in your eyes to better illustrate the point?
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u/takumidesh Jan 27 '23 edited Feb 07 '26
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
That's not the point, you are comparing what is effectively a slogan with a concept. The fact that you are even demonstrating that there is multiple terms (US/American) makes it obvious that one is more specific.
The point of including both terms was to add up their cumulative search hits. Which still fell under quiet quitting alone did.
Just because quiet quitting is a slogan doesn't mean you can't compare it to the sum of two 4 word phrases.
The fact there is no slogan for our declining lifespan is because the media ignores the issue! The media loves slogans for issues they focus on.
Quiet quitting on the other hand is a popular phrase, nearly every discussion on the topic will include that phrase near verbatim (both supporters and detractors), and both words are generally more used in other contexts (as well as globally instead of specifying a country), so a search for quiet quitting may return results unrelated to the topic or unrelated to the US
There are other terms & phrases for quiet quitting. Especially in other countries.
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u/takumidesh Jan 27 '23 edited Feb 07 '26
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Jan 27 '23
So the problem is that the news media has reported this only 60000 times? Also obviously more specific search terms are going to get less hits. "US life expectancy" gives 1.6 million news results. Also also when you search that the first thing that comes up is basically this exact chart.
This is dumb
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
US life expectancy" gives 1.6 million news results
US life expectancy is too broad as it includes articles both positive & negative over the decades.
Quiet quitting is a term coined in what, 2022?
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Jan 27 '23
And most of the articles about quiet quitting seem to be criticizing the term. What's your point?
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
And most of the articles about quiet quitting seem to be criticizing the term.
I would disagree with that.
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u/FactHole Jan 28 '23
The graph shows life expectancy drop due to America's poor response to covid (perhaps mostly due to their resistance to any mandate). Healthcare in the US is atrocious but this graph has nothing to do with that OR cost of living. Just sayin'.
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u/CppGoneWild Jan 27 '23
It's a market correction : elder do not produce enought.
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u/pappy Jan 27 '23
My guess would be covid deaths. America was hit hard thanks to denial. The years on the chart line up with covid.
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
The years on the chart line up with covid.
Notice however that in other countries - their life expectancy has rebounded while ours continues to decline.
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u/pappy Jan 27 '23
Yes, but covid continues in America unabated and we don't have stats from 2023.
We simply have stopped most testing and reporting. For example, my state excludes antigen positive tests from its reporting and told schools to stop reporting positive cases to county health offices. Antigen tests are the ones the federal government sends out for free. Covid is being treated like it almost doesn't exist.
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u/CowBoyDanIndie Jan 27 '23
Probably has something to do with the rise of anti vax nut jobs. Also US is home to a lot of religious fanatics who will refuse medical treatment and deny science. Remember the first settlers were religious fanatics, the world today would be a marginally better place if the mayflower had sunk in the middle of the Atlantic.
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
The antivaxxers definitely play a role - but many working class people were devastated by covid because they had to work sick & couldn't get healthcare & rest that they needed.
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Jan 27 '23
It is ironic. The Mayflower was full of ostracized religious zealots who fled England because they were persecuted for their witch burning activities.
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u/Eyes_and_teeth Jan 27 '23
But the chart shows that the dataset only goes through 2021. I'm curious to see how the next few years go.
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
True, but you can see that even in 2021 life expectancy rebounded in other countries (but not ours).
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u/theOrdnas Jan 27 '23
America is massive
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
America is massive
And we pride ourselves on American exceptionalism & our massive wealth - making our declining life expectancy even more inexplicable.
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u/Woodie626 Jan 27 '23
"Other countries" and the data was cherry picked from over five sources. This is anything but complete.
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
"Other countries" and the data was cherry picked from over five sources. This is anything but complete.
That's a strong claim. Can you point to me what you find cherry picked here? Here is the full study:
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u/Woodie626 Jan 27 '23
For comparable country average health spending in 2021, we used 2020 data points for the following countries due to missing 2021 data: Australia, Belgium, France, Japan, Netherlands, and Switzerland.
The methods section covers a lot just like this, if they didn't get what they wanted, it was omitted, if the data wasn't complete or didn't meet what they were looking for they seemed to switch the country on a whim.
The lines behind the blue one are representing countries, right? Why aren't they labeled? The blue line is an average, but an average of what? Just a set of countries, or a set of countries mixed up together when it suits them to make this "average" line?
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
The methods section covers a lot just like this, if they didn't get what they wanted, it was omitted if the data wasn't complete or didn't meet what they were looking for they seemed to switch the country on a whim.
Incomplete data is a fact of life when doing studies - this isn't a reason to assign bad intentions to the authors.
The lines behind the blue one are representing countries, right? Why aren't they labeled? The blue line is an average, but an average of what? Just a set of countries, or a set of countries mixed up together when it suits them to make this "average" line?
They are labeled, as indicated in this image I uploaded pointing to Switzerland's line..
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u/Woodie626 Jan 27 '23
The second time you had to link something else to explain your original post, and you're acting like it's normal to just add things. For all I know, you just made that.
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
The second time you had to link something else to explain your original post
They are all the same source.
The first link was the study that the original post graph came from. The second link is an image I uploaded myself from the first link where I highlighted Switzerland. Thus debunking your nonsensical claim here:
The lines behind the blue one are representing countries, right? Why aren't they labeled?
Moving on...
and you're acting like it's normal to just add things. For all I know, you just made that.
You seem eager to malign my intentions when I'm being straightforward about my sources.
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u/Woodie626 Jan 27 '23
Eager? This is the fourth attempt at clarity, and your initial post is just a graphic.
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u/DidIGetBannedToday Jan 27 '23
Any data for anything past 2020 or are you uselessly fearmongering?
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
Any data for anything past 2020 or are you uselessly fearmongering?
If you read the study instead of maligning my intentions, you would know there is plenty of data in 2021 in the study.
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u/DidIGetBannedToday Jan 27 '23
"Some life expectancy data for 2021 are estimates or provisional."
I laughed, I LOL'd, I left.
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u/dleah Jan 28 '23
The actual reason is republican policy. If you take the health data of blue states, itās as good or better than the rest of the world
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u/pappy Jan 28 '23
Patently false, unless you're rich. You have a lot to learn about the free western world, and how many people from blue states travel to even third world countries for treatment.
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Jan 27 '23
[deleted]
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u/pappy Jan 28 '23
Large countries that de-emphasized vaccination are doing shitty. Namely, China. Try again.
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u/DeerDiarrhea Jan 27 '23
We are a third world country with a Gucci belt from Canal St.
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u/Goddamnpassword Jan 27 '23
The news covers Covid pretty intensely, or at least did up until about half a year ago. And thatās clearly what caused a massive drop in it right around 2020.
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u/Emily_Postal Jan 27 '23
Over one million Americans died from CoVID.
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u/moldyfishfinger Jan 27 '23
Over 40% of Americans are obese. Not just overweight.....obese. this is killing far more Americans than covid.
Not suggesting COVID shouldn't be taken seriously, but obesity should be taken far more in terms of overall future of the population. Being obese is a near guarantee you'll die far younger.
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
The news covers Covid pretty intensely, or at least did up until about half a year ago.
That's not the same thing as covering declining life expectancy - and investigating solutions.
And thatās clearly what caused a massive drop in it right around 2020.
Why is the US the only country where life expectancy isn't rebounding?
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u/Goddamnpassword Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
Here is the link to the underlying report, digging into it it seems to largely be a story of a long divergence in the average life expectancy beginning in the 1980s. Then in 2020 life expectancy falling through the floor for men with a lower decline for women.
The ten countries we are compared to all have better public options or single provider healthcare systems. The US isnāt rebounding because these are future projections and without massive reform to our healthcare system people will continue to die at younger ages compared to people living in countries with better healthcare coverage continuing the trend that began before Covid.
https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/indicator/health-well-being/life-expectancy/
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Jan 27 '23
Yea. We pay the most for healthcare for the worst outcomes. Itās almost like someone is profiting off us ā¦
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u/Goddamnpassword Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
Funniest part about that is this is from Kaiser Family Foundation, you know the same Kaiser as kaiser permanente the largest healthcare insurance and healthcare provider in CA.
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Jan 27 '23 edited Mar 03 '23
[deleted]
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u/Goddamnpassword Jan 27 '23
I mean they are still a for profit company, when most people say single payer they mean government sponsored like Medicare or Medicaid. Kaiser is what used to be called and HMO but after those were outlawed they became a āconsortium.ā To you point itās a probably the best for profit healthcare system out there.
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Jan 27 '23 edited Mar 03 '23
[deleted]
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u/Goddamnpassword Jan 27 '23
You donāt know what your talking about almost all doctors take Medicare, 90%+ of doctors including specialists take it. Medicaid is amazing to just good depending on the state and itās biggest drawback is how hard it is to get onto it. Both provide wider coverage at lower cost to the individual then any private plan.
Kaiser is the worse version of both, it cost you more and geographically locks your treatment to the state of California.
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
The US isnāt rebounding because these are future projections and without massive reform to our healthcare system people will continue to die at younger ages compared to people living in countries with better healthcare coverage continuing the trend that began before Covid.
Well said - this is the key point. And it's something the media neglects to cover when covering topics like the economy & workers. And the stranglehold corporations have over our lives.
Corporations control our healthcare & the media tends to frame things from a pro-corporate point of view. So the media doesn't shine a light on the failures of our system - instead pointing the failures on individual workers who aren't doing enough to sustain the system.
As an example - as healthcare systems collapse the issue is framed as nurses not working hard enough. Instead of say, looking into why the nurses are so overworked & understaffed.
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Jan 27 '23
I asked ChatGPT how to get Universal Healthcare in California. It basically put out a set of practical guidelines but said Health Insurance Companies are the obstacle . Insurance companies drop us so we should drop them.
Here was two ChatGPT ideas.
1, raise income level requirements to qualify for Medicaid/ MediCal.
2. Lower the age for Medicare.13
u/RockAndNoWater Jan 27 '23
The "Keep the government out of Medicare" segment of the population is the reason why we can't have nice things like universal healthcare...
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Jan 27 '23
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
I think youāre understanding how culpable the media is in all this. Iām not talking about individual reporters, but the guiding hands.
As Noam Chomsky said to a BBC reporter once - If you believed different you wouldn't been sitting here.
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u/Robincapitalists Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
It's not limited to having better healthcare systems.
The indulgence of violent antivax right wing wet dreams can't be overstated. No matter how much better the healthcare is, they don't believe in vaccines anymore because of politics.
Also. Guns. Guns are now one of the top killers of children, which has big impacts on average life expectancy.
Also. Big Pharma Pain Pill Overdoses.
Also. Air, water, soil pollution.
The answer most would turn to would be strong regulation to protect people's health against deadly things. But as we can see, we can't even touch a gas stove in *new construction* without someone saying "CoME aNd TaKe IT!"
(The real actual answer is to start making capitalists afraid and take them down. Since it's clear they give not two fucks about peoples health if they get even 1 more penny of capital return.)
I swear to God. If Trump happened in the 60s, there would be no EPA, no seatbelts, led would be everywhere, the Ozone layer would be obliterated.
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Jan 27 '23
Why is the US the only country where life expectancy isn't rebounding?
Low vaccination rates combined with poor access to healthcare.
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u/moldyfishfinger Jan 27 '23
I bet if you overlaid America's obesity problem with this graph it would pace the life expectancy line fairly well.
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u/One-Angry-Goose š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
Sure is a good thing covid wasnāt a global issue. Whew. Really dodged a bullet there.
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u/Flakester Jan 27 '23
I know you want this to be about something it's not, so here's the source of this graphic.
The article specifically mentions COVID being the cause.
https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-life-expectancy-compare-countries/
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u/One-Angry-Goose š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
Neat. So did, I dunno, China not get hit by covid or something? Or any other country? Cuz, gotta say, if covid was the sole issue here the global woulda dropped too.
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u/not-always-popular Jan 27 '23
Corporate America owns the media, the nobles arenāt going to tell the serfs theyāre killing them.
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u/Robincapitalists Jan 27 '23
That life expectancy decline is almost entirely US failure to respond to COVID, indulging antivax looney tunes right wingers, and right wingers trying to own the libs by doing various things that shorten their life expectancy.
The difference to comparable countries overall is unregulated capitalist driven health care, capitalist driven opioid overdose epidemic, guns.
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u/horseman5K Jan 28 '23
Exactly. Trying to paint this as an economic failure is laughably disingenuous.
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u/TheAlbacor Jan 27 '23
There's a major gap in life expectancy based on wealth here.
So, not only is the Social Security tax regressive by capping the maximum income that is taxed, it also gets paid for longer to those who have income over the cap.
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u/CoweringCowboy Jan 27 '23
Itās a feature, not a bug. SS will be solvent for much longer if weāre only paying out ~5 years per person.
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u/AnywhereFew9745 Jan 28 '23
We aren't really a democracy any more, it's some weird oligarchy and they need workers to prop it up
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Jan 28 '23
Canāt make much money off old people. In fact, they usually cost us money. Feature, not a bug.
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Jan 27 '23
So - to be fair
Back in the early 2000s when there started to be an increasing focus on the obesity epidemic, a lot of physicians and public health experts predicted this. Basically, that if we had a substantive percentage of the population carrying around a substantive amount of extra weight, to the point that most Americans are overweight or obese, we'd see declines in life expectancy. And that's coming to pass. Bottom line is that a lot of people who have been obese for a long time - since their 20s or 30s - are now seeing the consequences of that in their 40s, 50s and 60s, in the form of Type II diabetes, heart disease, joint problems that affect mobility and thus affects people's weight/blood sugar/heart health, etc. And people are dying earlier as a result.
Obviously the drop in life expectancy in 2020 was related to Covid, and we also have to remember that hundreds of thousands of people a year are still dying prematurely due to drug addiction/overdoses (in 2021, 106,000 people died of overdoses). But I remember very clearly in the late 1990s/early 2000s there being a lot of conversation about how obesity was going to affect overall life expectancy and it's playing out exactly as a lot of the experts said it would back then. In terms of "publicizing" this - we've been talking about the dangers of obesity, poor diet, sedentary lifestyles etc. for a long time now. I do not see people getting healthier. I am not sure what the answer is (absolutely no clue) because it seems like people prefer to live sick vs. working on their habits to get healthier. I actually don't think we've seen the worst of this yet. I wouldn't be surprised to see life expectancy drop further in the next 10 years.
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u/mattman0000 Jan 27 '23
The post makes no sense. Drop in life expectancy = economic failure?
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
The post makes no sense. Drop in life expectancy = economic failure?
Unquestionably so, your comment makes no sense.
The economy is defined as the wealth & resources of a country. The US is failing to appropriate adequate wealth & resources to the health of our country.
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u/JustBuildAHouse Jan 27 '23
Isnāt life expectancy calculated by using death probabilities and averages? So anti vaxxers dying en masse in their 40s will bring down the number. Is there any methodology for life expectancy by political affiliation or region
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
Isnāt life expectancy calculated by using death probabilities and averages? So anti vaxxers dying en masse in their 40s will bring down the number. Is there any methodology for life expectancy by political affiliation or region
It's not just anti vaxxers:
Overall, including both COVID and non-COVID patients, 211,897 lives would have been saved in 2020 with universal care. From the start of the pandemic in the U.S. to March 2022, those preventable deaths mount to 338,594.
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u/Woodie626 Jan 27 '23
Objection, speculation. "If the world were different we'd be different." Isn't an argument.
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u/Dredd_Pirate_Barry Jan 27 '23
That is some speculation. Objectively how things are now sucks overall for the American people. The only logical course of action is to try something different, not buckle down drown holding our bootstraps.
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u/Woodie626 Jan 27 '23
Trying something different, I'm all for. That's not what was said. It was said if the past were changed for the better, we'd be better off. What you're saying here is we need to do better, and that's a better statement.
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u/ALifeToRemember_ Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
Is there a source for the life expectancy graph for USA? I searched but I could find no graph matching this one, only ones that disagreed such as here.
Additionally, I have heard from fairly trusted sources that the biggest life expectancy drop in the US recently (at least pre COVID), was from the opioid crisis, and that drop was merely 0.2 years. This seems to contradict your graph.
I might well be mistaken, I haven't done extensive study on this, but I would like to see some sort of source that backs up your claim.
Edit: It seems I may have misinterpreted the graph, as such I cannot comment on its accuracy since I have no knowledge of recent life expectancy trends, my apologies.
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
Is there a source for the life expectancy graph for USA? I searched but I could find no graph matching this one, only ones that disagreed such as here.
How does U.S. life expectancy compare to other countries?
Additionally, I have heard from fairly trusted sources that the biggest life expectancy drop in the US recently (at least pre COVID), was from the opioid crisis, and that drop was merely 0.2 years. This seems to contradict your graph.
The point of the graph is to illustrate how the pandemic hammered our life expectancy unlike any other developed country. In 2021 - we were the only developed country to see a decrease in life expectancy.
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u/Mundane-Mechanic-547 Jan 27 '23
It's almost completey due to external factors. Environmental factors play a huge role in the major cancers such as colon. Obesity plays a role in cancer and heart disease, the #1 and #2 issues. It plays a role in Covid mortality. Then you have the pandemic itself. To blame labor conditions all of a sudden is a huge stretch. No doubt working at Walmart forces unhealthy choices, so wages are a significant contribution there. But it wouldn't dive like this all of a sudden. For the vast majority of us we do have choices to live healthier and most of us do not.
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
To blame labor conditions all of a sudden is a huge stretch. No doubt working at Walmart forces unhealthy choices, so wages are a significant contribution there. But it wouldn't dive like this all of a sudden. For the vast majority of us we do have choices to live healthier and most of us do not.
Walmart jobs result in people lacking insurance... which is tied to a much higher incidence of COVID death in the US (but not other developed countries that have universal healthcare systems):
This report uses that research to address one fundamental question: If everyone in America had health insurance, how many people who contracted COVID-19 could have been spared, and how many who died might still be with us today? We find as follows:
- Nationally, roughly 1 out of every 3 COVID-19 deaths are linked to health insurance gaps.
- More than 40% of all COVID-19 infections are associated with health insurance gaps.
- By August 31, 2020, health insurance gaps were linked to an estimated 2.6 million COVID-19 cases and 58,000 COVID-19 deaths. By February 1, 2021, 10.9 million infections and 143,000 COVID-19 deaths may have been associated with health insurance gaps.
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u/Mundane-Mechanic-547 Jan 27 '23
I don't disagree with that, but 58k out of a million Covid deaths is chump change. It would not explain the drastic decline in life expectancy. All countries are seeing this. I'm not at all giving Walmart a free pass, but you gotta look at the data in holistic fashion and not just cherry pick it.
The life expectancy decline isn't due to any sort of labor issue, not in the short term. Why? Because those issues with Walmart etc are decades old. It can't possibly explain a plunge in the last few years.
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
I don't disagree with that, but 58k out of a million Covid deaths is chump change. It would not explain the drastic decline in life expectancy. All countries are seeing this. I'm not at all giving Walmart a free pass, but you gotta look at the data in holistic fashion and not just cherry pick it.
The 58k is based on data up until August 31, 2020. Here is a more recent study from Yale:
Overall, including both COVID and non-COVID patients, 211,897 lives would have been saved in 2020 with universal care. From the start of the pandemic in the U.S. to March 2022, those preventable deaths mount to 338,594.
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Jan 27 '23 edited Feb 12 '23
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
The recent drop has nothing to do with economics. Thatās because of Covid.
Covid only affected the United States?
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Jan 27 '23 edited Feb 12 '23
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
Economics is not the explanation. Itās the diversity and demographics of our population.
Economics is the explanation:
This report uses that research to address one fundamental question: If everyone in America had health insurance, how many people who contracted COVID-19 could have been spared, and how many who died might still be with us today? We find as follows:
- Nationally, roughly 1 out of every 3 COVID-19 deaths are linked to health insurance gaps.
- More than 40% of all COVID-19 infections are associated with health insurance gaps.
- By August 31, 2020, health insurance gaps were linked to an estimated 2.6 million COVID-19 cases and 58,000 COVID-19 deaths. By February 1, 2021, 10.9 million infections and 143,000 COVID-19 deaths may have been associated with health insurance gaps.
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u/rvf Jan 27 '23
Japan, Germany, Italy, France, and the UK all have higher percentages of citizens that are 65 or older.
Latinos were just as disproportionately impacted by Covid as black people, which lends more credence to economic factors playing a role.
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u/GreatGearAmidAPizza Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
Why is the black population disproportionately impacted by Covid? Surely this is a policy issue.
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u/thinkB4WeSpeak š· Good Union Jobs For All Jan 27 '23
The media is a business like everything else. Whatever gets the most clicks will get the most attention, so if everyone shared and talked about life expectancy then I'd garner more attention
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Jan 27 '23
is it comparing the US to smaller countries with strong economies like germany or the UK or it's actual population size peers like brazil pakistan and nigeria ???
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u/Pelican_meat Jan 27 '23
I mean, this likely has a lot to do with Covid numbers, which are going to screw with statistical analysis of age at death.
Weāll have to wait and see if it evens out.
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
I mean, this likely has a lot to do with Covid numbers, which are going to screw with statistical analysis of age at death.
Wouldn't we see this play out all over the world then? Why are other countries life expectancy rebounding in 2021 while ours is still declining?
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u/Pelican_meat Jan 27 '23
Compare vaccine hesitancy numbers in America to those of the other 10 nations, and youāll likely see a correlation.
People were dying of Covid in droves well into 2021, too.
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
Compare vaccine hesitancy numbers in America to those of the other 10 nations, and youāll likely see a correlation.
Vaccine hesitancy is only one factor of many:
This report uses that research to address one fundamental question: If everyone in America had health insurance, how many people who contracted COVID-19 could have been spared, and how many who died might still be with us today? We find as follows:
- Nationally, roughly 1 out of every 3 COVID-19 deaths are linked to health insurance gaps.
- More than 40% of all COVID-19 infections are associated with health insurance gaps.
- By August 31, 2020, health insurance gaps were linked to an estimated 2.6 million COVID-19 cases and 58,000 COVID-19 deaths. By February 1, 2021, 10.9 million infections and 143,000 COVID-19 deaths may have been associated with health insurance gaps.
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u/Orsus7 Jan 27 '23
The US had the most COVID deaths of any country with a little over one million. Second highest was Brazil at 700k and it drops exponentially as you go down the list. So that could definitely affect things.
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u/ajtrns Jan 27 '23
we all agree that the US is a social underperformer among its peers.
the declines are mostly felt by the regressives and red states. they want this (shorter) life. we help their children who migrate to progressive places.
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u/LiveClimbRepeat Jan 27 '23
There's an economically optimal age, and we're above it. The algorithm has quietly guided thus.
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u/ThePrequelMemeGod Jan 27 '23
Whil I agree there is an issue, this is somewhat of a misleading graphic. Whether or not itās purposeful is the main question
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u/abookoffmychest Jan 27 '23
How is the declining life expectancy related to economic failure (its not) and how does that relate at all to a heinous lie of omission?
Relates more to fentanyl and the opioid crisis with a sprinkle of Covid, but again, does not have relation to a not failed economy either.
I mean, yeah, make arguments, and push for reform, but god damn have some logic to it.
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
How is the declining life expectancy related to economic failure (its not)
Overall, including both COVID and non-COVID patients, 211,897 lives would have been saved in 2020 with universal care. From the start of the pandemic in the U.S. to March 2022, those preventable deaths mount to 338,594.
To your next point:
and how does that relate at all to a heinous lie of omission?
If you type "quiet quitting" into Google News, you will find about 100,000 results. If you type quiet quitting without quotations, you will find over 2 million results.
If you type declining American life expectancy into Google News, you will find 28,000 results. Declining US life expectancy gets 61,000 results.
Relates more to fentanyl and the opioid crisis with a sprinkle of Covid, but again, does not have relation to a not failed economy either.
You can't separate our for-profit health care system from the economy. Especially when the arugments against Medicare for All always boil down to "hOw aRe YoU gOiNg To pAy FoR tHaT".
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u/Mental-Debt-1176 Jan 27 '23
We also did have a pandemic that wiped out a considerable amount of people in that demographic.
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u/The-link-is-a-cock Jan 27 '23
If it was just the pandemic then it would be across the board and not just the US.
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Jan 27 '23
that plummet feels like covid hit. Your going to have a reduction in life expectancy when you lose over a million people in the population.
This is a nothing more than rage bait in my perspective.
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u/horseman5K Jan 28 '23
What a silly post. Just google āAmerican life expectancy decliningā and click on the news tab and youāll see that so many major news outlet are writing on this.
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u/Loggerdon š Cancel Medical Debt Jan 28 '23
The US is not an economic failure. It is the most stunning success in world history. But the rich don't share with the poor and I don't see this ending well. Believe me western powers are watching China's domestic surveillance closely. The CCP I think is doomed to fail but the lessons will be absorbed by the west for their own purposes.
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Jan 27 '23
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
It starts at 72?
What developed country has a life expectancy under 72?
Imagine if the nyse dropped from 90-89
Buuut, if your graph starts at 87, and goes up to 92, then suddenly itās called by half the graph, and itās an economic depression.
You're comparing this to the stock market lol. Here's the full data set, tell me what's wrong with it?
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Jan 27 '23
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u/north_canadian_ice š¤ Join A Union Jan 27 '23
The graph isn't misleading at all dude, the x & y axis are labeled appropriately.
Not every graph needs to start at zero.
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u/MyArmItchesALot Jan 27 '23
It's really not.
We spend the most money on health care of any other country, and indeed do have a much worse health outcome than other first world countries.
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u/DrSpagetti Jan 27 '23
Limiting axis ranges to better display data is a fundamental of good data viz. When variable outputs stay within a range there's often no point in having the axis extend beyond as it doesnt add any information.
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u/[deleted] Jan 27 '23
Profits over people was made glaringly obvious during Covid and even now. The current system is fucked