President Barack Obama promised to fix the health care system, but for the first time in decades, life expectancy is declining.
It declined last year and it is no better than it was four years ago.
In most of the years since World War II, life expectancy in the U.S. has inched up, thanks to medical advances, public health campaigns and better nutrition and education.
But last year it slipped, an exceedingly rare event in a year that did not include a major disease outbreak. Other one-year declines occurred in 1993, when the nation was in the throes of the AIDS epidemic, and 1980, the result of an especially nasty flu season.
In 2015, rates for 8 of the 10 leading causes of death rose. Even more troubling to health experts: the U.S. seems to be settling into a trend of no improvement at all.
“With four years, you’re starting to see some indication of something a little more ominous,” said S. Jay Olshansky, a University of Illinois-Chicago public health researcher.
An American born in 2015 is expected to live 78 years and 9½ months, on average, according to preliminary data released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An American born in 2014 could expect to live about month longer, and even an American born in 2012 would have been expected to live slightly longer. In 1950, life expectancy was just over 68 years.
The United States ranks below dozens of other high-income countries in life expectancy, according to the World Bank. It is highest in Japan, at nearly 84 years.
The CDC report is based mainly on 2015 death certificates. There were more than 2.7 million deaths, or about 86,000 more than the previous year. The increase in raw numbers partly reflects the nation’s growing and aging population.
It was led by an unusual upturn in the death rate from the nation’s leading killer, heart disease. Death rates also increased for chronic lower lung disease, accidental injuries, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, kidney disease and suicide.
The only clear drop was in cancer, the nation’s No. 2 killer.
Experts aren’t sure what’s behind the stall. Some, like Olshansky, suspect obesity, an underlying factor in some of the largest causes of death, particularly heart disease.
But there’s also the impact of rising drug overdoses and suicides, he noted. Drug overdose deaths soared 11 percent to more than 52,000 last year, the most ever, driven by increases in deaths from heroin, prescription painkillers and other so-called opioids.
“There are a lot of things happening at the same time,” he said.
Some years the CDC later revises its life expectancy estimate after doing additional analysis, including for its 2014 estimate.
Average life expectancy declined for men, falling by more than two months, to 76 years and 3 ½ months in 2015. It fell by about one month for women, to 81 years and 2 ½ months, the CDC said.
Death rates increased for black men, white men, white women, and slightly for Hispanic men and women. But they did not change for black women.
The new CDC report did not offer a geographic breakdown of 2015 deaths, or analysis of death based on education or income. But other research has shown death rates are rising sharply for poorer people — particularly white people — in rural areas but not wealthier and more highly educated and people on the coasts.
“The troubling trends are most pronounced for the people who are the most disadvantaged,” said Jennifer Karas Montez, a Syracuse University researcher who studies adult death patterns.
“But if we don’t know why life expectancy is decreasing for some groups, we can’t be confident that it won’t start declining for others,” she said.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Moron’s know exactly why it’s declining. It was all in the plan. Obama Care is another of the progressive left’s income redistribution efforts where the workers pay for those who won’t work. The ones who can’t work, I have no problem with. To make the system work over the long haul, you have to reduce the risk pool. To reduce it, the natural way is to die. The ones that die are the ones that are older. The older you get, the less medical care you receive. That is the purpose of the so called death panels. Get rid of Obama Care, replace it with a real system and you’ll see the trend reverse.
It is refreshing to see that I’m not the only one who felt the same way. The authors of this horrific medical plan I have already said it’s doing exactly what it was intended to do. At the time you need medical assistance the most is when it is denied you in your retirement years. Excellent post by the way.
Oren, you correctly identified the problem. Obama’s death panels decreed that people past the age of 75 would not receive any medical care that would extend their life span unless they were prominent Democrats like Jimmy Carter.
Major medical institutions have instituted a procedure where one calls for an appointment and we are sent an e-mail application to fill out and then three days later receive an answer that there are no appointments available. I have personally experienced this situation at the age of 89.
Add to that every able bodied person receiving government aid be required to donate their time, cleaning up at a park, neighborhoods and highways, volunteering at a care home or hospital ect. Get these freeloaders off their collective rears. No more baby making jobs under the welfare system, deeper incentives for keeping the family unit together and being responsible members of society.
I’m all for Workfare to those who can’t find a job, but even that needs to be time limited. Otherwise, why get a job?
Medicare has upper limits on certain procedures–which if not performed means the patient dies: for example organ replacement.
Also, surgical gastric bypass which would ease the obesity and diabetic problem. Medicare’s policies need review. This doesn’t have much to do with Obamacare in my opinion.
Every time he does something illegal or harmful to the nation people whom are powerless get stressed. In eight years he got away with everything possible except murder. He has not had to answer to anyone, nore will. The deficit which we must call national debt since that word was twisted has double in eight years, illegal immigrants now labeled immigrants by our Fuehrer, unaffordable health care, a world in turmoil he claims he fixed through diplomacy, and a dying out middle class taxed to death to pay for his supporters. The guy would stand in front of the world and lie, everyone had to accept his lies, or be given a label or stigma by his liberal brown shirts. Sure folks are dying earlier, they got less and now pay more. Why is he so anti-America, what pleasure does he get from screwing this nation over? A month plus and this bullshit artist is finally gone, just a really bad memory. His supporters are like him delusional or worst yet believe his cabinet members lies.
The deficit is the amount of money that congress has to borrow to fill the needs of the country (due to a lot of waste and giveaway programs,) that the incoming taxes can’t cover. The National Debt is the accumulation of the borrowed money.
You said “he got away with everything possible except murder”. I disagree.
I believe that he took out a US citizen who was the son of a terrorist leader, using a drone. Without any due process. Without any direct evidence that the son was himself a terrorist.
Not surprising
Sure is declining when you go to some doctors with the obama care insurance they get you in and out of the office before you close your mouth and then they bill you for what the insurance did not pay. No wonder the life expectancy is dropping because you can get a heart attack or an ulcer once the doctor sends you the bill for what the insurance company did not pay
They have taken away coverage from the middle to give to the illegals, muslimes and those who refuse to work. Insurance is too costly to even use if you do have it. It is free for the others.
My heart is warmed by theare.se intelligent observations. We the people are not the dumb sheep the elite Establishment Cabal of crooks deludes themselves we are. We know a bad deal when we hear it and more especially when we experience it first hand. We need to stand together, outside of party affiliations, and hold every branch of our government accountable. It is OUR government and, ultimately, it is our responsibility to make sure it serves our best interests and NOT the agendas of Special Interests. How can we do that? By some type of “Citizen Watch” program where we volunteer our time to be sure it is We the People who are being fairly served and. and represented by every branch of government at all times. In otherwords, we look over the shoulders of our elected officials at every level keep them honest. Rotating volunteer groups every 60 to 90 days might work just so long as our elected and appointed officials take their direction from us and not.big money special interests. We the citizens being represented should always have been directly jands on in the shaping of government policies as they affect We the People. We left our Constitution to the oversight of our elected officials and look at what happened.
It is not Obama care! Look up in the sky people. It is called Chem trails and GEOENGINERING. These CRIMINALS poisoning planet earth are spraying God knows what on us all. Bringing the gas chambers directly to the people. The final solution is to speed up our mortality, thereby reducing future populations and “liabilities”. PURE EVIL
THIS IS THE BIGGEST STORY NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT.
This reflects the irony rampant in the MMM (mainstream medical mafia): not only have they been complicit in suppressing alternate cures that actually work (for a change) and do not cost a fortune or two (or more), they have managed to limit our choices by forcing doctors and the rest of us into the (artificially and maliciously imposed) constrictions of Obamacare…luring the idle masses with free stuff while they leave the rest of us twisting in the wind as we reach in vain for access to a (lousy) system we are forced to finance! Instead of improving the availability of health insurance/medical care, they have managed to keep it further outside our grasp, limiting its access to the idle masses and the filthy-rich-crony political left.
Health experts predicted the lower life expectancy before even Obama took office, so Obamacare has nothing to do with it. Here’s a quote from the following 2007 article: “The latest figures suggest that a third of American children are either overweight or at risk of becoming so. If the trend continues, today’s children will be the first generation of Americans to have a shorter lifespan (by two to five years) than their parents.” http://www.economist.com/node/9208296
It doesn’t matter who is the president of the USA. None of them pushes junk food into people’s mouths and force them to spent their entire life online. This is how people’s life expectation is falling.