The gaps have been increasing BECAUSE OF efforts by the federal government to reduce them.
Posted on 03/22/2008 4:56:44 PM PDT by reaganaut1
WASHINGTON — New government research has found “large and growing” disparities in life expectancy for richer and poorer Americans, paralleling the growth of income inequality in the last two decades.
Life expectancy for the nation as a whole has increased, the researchers said, but affluent people have experienced greater gains, and this, in turn, has caused a widening gap.
One of the researchers, Gopal K. Singh, a demographer at the Department of Health and Human Services, said “the growing inequalities in life expectancy” mirrored trends in infant mortality and in death from heart disease and certain cancers.
The gaps have been increasing despite efforts by the federal government to reduce them. One of the top goals of “Healthy People 2010,” an official statement of national health objectives issued in 2000, is to “eliminate health disparities among different segments of the population,” including higher- and lower-income groups and people of different racial and ethnic background.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The whole obsession with closing "gaps" is unrealistic and pernicious. If the gap between life expectancy between the rich and poor closed by the rich dying earlier, would that be a success? Educated people will have the knowledge to take better care of their health than the less educated, so can the education gap in life expectancy be "eliminated"?
The goals of No Child Left Behind to eliminate "gaps" in educational achievement are similarly unrealistic. Policymakers should focus on improving outcomes across the board.
..."women and minorities ___ ______."
Man. I hope the rich people don’t die off faster than the rest of us!
Who’ll have the capital to provide the rest of us with jobs and career opportunities in the free market? Who wants to hurry up their demise so their snot-nosed kids can run the show? (Aside from said ‘snot-nosed kids,’ LOL!)
What an embarrasing article. The Times is going to lose both of their readers if they keep printing this class-crap..
Americans Living Longer!
(poor and minorities hardest hit)
It’s Darwinian.
Don’t worry... Hillary will fix that by making us all poor.
anytime I read “gap increases” arguments from NYT I immediately translate:
good news by any normal human measure
The title should read “Gap in Life expectancy because of the Widening of the Nation.”
Being irresponsible tends to make one poor and often leads people to neglect their health. They just naturally go together.
This survey merely verifies what would seem obvious.
Those who are successful in some areas of their lives-like earning a living- are more likely to be successful in other areas of their life- like keeping their health.
This is a study that only merits publication because of its propaganda value, in stirring up resentment among the less affluent and guilt in others.
For the rabid, brain-dead Marxists at the New York Times, gains in longevity for all Americans is not a story, because some gain more than others. There should have been a barf alert on this story.
But I thought “Hope I Die Before I Get Old” was one of the anthems of their generation. So what’s the problem?
Study with an agenda: universal health care.
If prior levels of death taxes are restored after 2010, then the life expectancy of rich old people will drop precipitously in the year prior to that, where no death taxes are lawful.
One way of leveling the field.
Group A: Richer Americans. They get private healthcare; freedom of choice
Group B: Poorer Americans. They get crappy government healthcare (Medicaid, VA, Indian Health System, EMTALA E.R. “free coverage,” and very shortly, Medicare)
The democrat party leadership wants to eliminate Group A and put everyone into Group B. Except for themselves personally.
If you near 79.2-years-old and you are rich, perhaps you would have medical procedures done that would bankrupt a middle class person.
The gaps have been increasing BECAUSE OF efforts by the federal government to reduce them.
Bottom line, some people are communists and won't be happy unless there is complete equity in society. Capitalism is based on consumerism, private enterprise and ownership, and “in-equity.” Yes, that's right, the goal of capitalism isn't to create uniformity of wealth, something socialists and communists can't can't come to grips with.
This story will surely be spun into a story of inequity in health care, since that's the agenda most likely behind it in the first place. However, what this really tells is a story about AIDS, smoking, obesity, homicide rates among certain demographics etc.
Think about this for a second. Look at the HIV/AIDS rate among black men and then think about what impact that has statistically. http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets
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