Con-Undrum
By Mitch Berg
One of the main motivators for Obamacare socialized medicine, we are told, is that America’s health picture is so dismal and that our life expenctancy is falling, and…
…well, no. Just, no. Life expectancies in the US are up, and sharply:
The increase is due mainly to falling death rates in almost all the leading causes of death. The average life expectancy for babies born in 2007 is nearly three months greater than for children born in 2006.
The new U.S. data is a preliminary report based on about 90 percent of the death certificates collected in 2007. It comes from the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Life expectancy is the period a child born in 2007 is expected to live, assuming mortality trends stay constant. U.S. life expectancy has grown nearly one and a half years in the past decade, and is now at an all-time-high.
Last year, the CDC said U.S. life expectancy had inched above 78 years. But the CDC recently changed how it calculates life expectancy, which caused a small shrink in estimates to below 78.
I suppose it’s possible that socialized medicine will increase life expentancy; people who are waiting in line at the Department of Pharmacy won’t be subject to the risks of being at home, work or out on the street.
Just trying to find the silver lining.
