The WSJ just reported that life expectancy in the US declined for the third consecutive year in 2017. This is unusual. Life expectancy is now lower than in 2010, when Obamacare was enacted.
In addition, America has one of the lowest life expectancies in the developed world, and the gap is widening between the US on the one hand and Europe/East Asia on the other. Furthermore, in 2009 there were sizable differences among ethnic groups in the US:
So what can we make of all of this? Here are some hypotheses:
1. The big gap between whites and blacks show the savage inequalities in American society.
2. The fact that US life expectancy is lower than in 2010 shows that Obamacare has failed.
3. The relatively low life expectancy in America shows that socialized medicine is better.
4. The fact that 21 million Asian Americans live far longer than residents of any other country, even 3 years longer than the Japanese, shows how great our medical system is, controlling for lifestyle.
5. The falling average American life expectancy in recent years shows the pernicious affect of neoliberal ideologies that have destroyed our working class.
6. The fact that Hispanics live much longer than whites, despite much lower incomes, suggest that inequality in America doesn’t have strong negative effects on health.
I could go on and on. For any ideology, left or right, I can find life expectancy data to prove my point.
What do I actually believe? Only this:
7. Life expectancy data show life expectancies.
And I’m not even 100% sure about that, as the accuracy of the data is sometimes questioned.
PS. No need for commenters to tell me what’s wrong with assertions #1 through #6. I know what’s wrong with each of them. It’s like shooting ducks in a barrel.
READER COMMENTS
Alan Goldhammer
Nov 30 2018 at 2:51pm
Scott writes, “PS. No need for commenters to tell me what’s wrong with assertions #1 through #6. I know what’s wrong with each of them. It’s like shooting ducks in a barrel.”
The irony of the last sentence is quite striking given the subject matter of the post.
RPLong
Nov 30 2018 at 3:04pm
Despite being shot, most of the ducks survived.
Seppo Mäntylä
Nov 30 2018 at 3:47pm
More interesting than the actual life expectancy figure are the other figures that are publicised.
For example the data on drug overdoses doesn’t exactly paint too good picture on the current drug policies:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db329.htm
Mark Bahner
Nov 30 2018 at 11:56pm
I don’t understand why overdose deaths continue to rise. It seems to me that, in this age of big data, it should be very easy to spot individuals addicted to prescription opioids from their purchasing history and from pharmacy drug selling history.
Mark Z
Dec 1 2018 at 4:32am
I think the theory is that people tend to get initially addicted from prescription opiates (and therefore don’t have a history when their addiction starts), then, once addicted, even if cut off from legal supply, will simply go to the illegal market. So to the extent that the prescription drug market merely serves as a gateway into the illegal opiate market, using purchasing history may not help much.
Mark Bahner
Dec 1 2018 at 8:43pm
If the “60 Minutes” pieces on the opioid epidemic can be believed, there is no way that the people who distribute pills to pharmacies, and the pharmacies themselves, could not have known about problems. For example, per “60 Minutes”:
…and…
…and…
Such situations shouldn’t even take “big data” analysis to see there’s a significant problem.
Joseph K
Nov 30 2018 at 3:50pm
The life expectancy data might not be able to prove anything conclusively, but I think they at least can be used to disprove (or make less plausible) certain assertions.
The facts that Hispanics outlive whites shows that poverty is unlikely to be a major factor behind life expectancy, further supported by the fact that Native Americans outlive blacks and Asians outlive Whites, despite them having higher poverty rates. Also, I would also interpret it as saying that access to health care is probably at most a trivial factor in life expectancy since access to health care access for Asians is quite low.
Even limited data can poke holes in the most respectable theories.
Scott Sumner
Nov 30 2018 at 6:30pm
Joseph, There could be any number of reasons for the difference in life expectancy. I don’t think it proves or disproves anything.
Josh S
Nov 30 2018 at 8:14pm
One thing you can say is that falling life expectancy is not a positive development, and is evidence that the overall American system is failing some people significantly. Though true, it’s not necessarily helpful, as your many hypotheses illustrate. Perhaps it is useful at least for countering claims that “everything is great” and we just need to protect the status quo (a common refrain of some pundits and politicians).
Mark Z
Dec 1 2018 at 4:43am
I don’t think this is proof that ‘the overall American system is failing some people.’ If we’re talking about drug abuse, it isn’t necessarily the fault of ‘the system’ (the state, or society in general) if, say, some segment(s) of the population becomes more prone to drug use, or violence. Treating this like a problem with ‘the system’ seems very paternalistic. And while many people tend offload the blame for their problems – including drug addiction – on society in general or the government, regardless of whether it’s warranted, for nor helping them enough, nor stopping them from harming themselves,, regarding things they’ve done in the past, those same people tend to adamantly object to any intrusion on their freedom to make whatever decision they’re about to make.
David S
Dec 2 2018 at 1:29am
Possibly not. If someone commits suicide (which is one of the increased factors), it is at least possible that their utility function just valued suicide more than life. So it is at least possible that it would be a good thing. (For example, if terminal cancer patients were allowed to commit suicide.)
BC
Dec 2 2018 at 2:24am
“One thing you can say is that falling life expectancy is not a positive development”
No, due to compositional effects, when an average gets worse, one can’t assume that things are getting worse for any given individual. For example, if low life expectancy demographic groups are becoming a higher proportion of the population, then overall average life expectancy can decrease even if life expectancy within each demographic group is increasing.
Kris
Nov 30 2018 at 8:54pm
‘What do I actually believe? Only this:
7. Life expectancy data show life expectancies.’
Let’s take even that belief away! Life expectancies are reported in 1 of 2 ways:
Assuming mortality doesn’t change.
Projecting mortality rates into the next 100 years, and calculating life expectancies from that.
We can project mortality rates, say, 5 years into the future. But 50 year forecasts (and beyond) are extremely questionable. But that is what life expectancies (at birth) depend on.
Thomas Sewell
Nov 30 2018 at 9:10pm
My understanding is that despite efforts to make some corrections/estimates, the life expectancy stats remain heavily influenced by infant mortality:
For example [forbes.com]:
Thomas Sewell
Nov 30 2018 at 9:30pm
Also, at the risk of replying to myself, a big chunk of the difference is because of low birth weight from younger/teen mothers in the U.S.
Mark Bahner
Dec 1 2018 at 12:02am
It would be interesting to know what happened to those 52 surviving babies…how many of them are healthy, versus died in childhood, or are burdened by lifelong medical problems.
ChrisA
Dec 1 2018 at 12:48pm
This site gives a very useful analysis of life expectancy at various ages;
https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/your-life-expectancy-by-age
You can see that even at older ages the US life expectancy lags other highly developed countries. So it cannot be a factor related to differences in the way infant mortality is calculated.
robc
Dec 3 2018 at 9:56am
Without more breakdown, you still have the mix problem to deal with. We need to compare Japanese-Americans to Japanese and Swedish-Americans to Swedes and etc.
Loveactuary
Nov 30 2018 at 10:01pm
The finding regards the change in life expectancy while most of your points above (except 2 and 5) discuss absolute life expectancy and difference among groups.
My friend Dale, the director of research at the Society of Actuaries, indicates that the decline in mortality improvement is driven by “opioid/suicide trends, slowdown in cancer and heart improvements”.
https://twitter.com/RDaleHall/status/1068129893249155072?s=19
Ahmed Fares
Nov 30 2018 at 10:44pm
You find a strong correlation between obesity and life expectancy. This from a gallop article:
Blacks are among the most likely in the United States to be very obese, with about 9% falling into obese class II and 6% obese class III — the highest Body Mass Index (BMI) categories. Asians are by far the least likely to fall into these two classes of obesity. Hispanics are on par with whites for each obesity class.
source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/155735/blacks-likely-obese-asians-least.aspx
Mark Bahner
Dec 1 2018 at 12:10am
Yes, the person or people who come up with an effective pill that curbs appetite without substantial adverse side-effects will become very rich.
Thaomas
Dec 1 2018 at 12:31pm
Comparison of age specific life expectancy would be a lot more helpful.
Andre
Dec 1 2018 at 6:41pm
Almost all of the differences are due to diet, people: all diabetes, almost all heart disease; most cancers; and many other causes of death.
(Particularly terrible are two stats: only 7% of dietary calories come from produce, half of which are from oil and salt-laden french fries, and rounding, 0% of men aged 15-44 get the minimum amount of dietary fiber. )
White people have bad diets. Blacks have atrocious diets.
Otoh, the more recent immigrant groups haven’t had a life-long terrible diets and first generation immigrants generally maintain healthier patterns anyway.
Hence longer lives for Asians and for poorer Latinos, who benefit fromlots of beans.
Everything else is much smaller stuff.
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