US Life Expectancy Falls For 2nd Year In a Row 209
Despite the availability of life-saving COVID-19 vaccines, so many people died in the second year of the pandemic in the U.S. that the nation's life expectancy dropped for a second year in a row last year, according to a new analysis. NPR reports: The analysis of provisional government statistics found U.S. life expectancy fell by just under a half a year in 2021, adding to a dramatic plummet in life expectancy that occurred in 2020. Public health experts had hoped the vaccines would prevent another drop the following year. "The finding that instead we had a horrible loss of life in 2021 that actually drove the life expectancy even lower than it was in 2020 is very disturbing," says Dr. Steven Woolf, a professor of population health and health equity at Virginia Commonwealth University, who help conduct the analysis. "It speaks to an extensive loss of life during 2021."
Many of the deaths occurred in people in the prime of their lives, Woolf says, and drove the overall U.S. life expectancy to fall to 76.6 years -- the lowest in at least 25 years. "The motivation for this study was to determine whether the horrible drop in life expectancy that we documented in 2020 resolved or rebounded in 2021 or whether there was a continued decline. Unfortunately, we did not find good news," Woolf told NPR in an interview.
Many of the deaths occurred in people in the prime of their lives, Woolf says, and drove the overall U.S. life expectancy to fall to 76.6 years -- the lowest in at least 25 years. "The motivation for this study was to determine whether the horrible drop in life expectancy that we documented in 2020 resolved or rebounded in 2021 or whether there was a continued decline. Unfortunately, we did not find good news," Woolf told NPR in an interview.
oh well (Score:2)
Re: oh well (Score:3, Insightful)
Whenever there is an antivaxer ranting I try to come up with more sensational conspiracies. It is quit entertaining.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The number of unvaccinated dead people outshines the number of vaccinated dead people by a considerable margin. Hint, there are still a lot of unvaxed people out there. I guess statistics are beyond your ken. You do know there are stat courses you can take to correct your educational imbalance, yes?
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Statistics requires scary math with weird letters. They'd need quite a bit of remediation before a stats course would help.
Oh, judging from the latter half of his comment, I think the parent was joking.
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Oh, let's put these questions on the standardized tests required for high school graduation maybe!
"If there is a 10% chance of catching a disease that has a 1% death rate, and a vaccine reduces chance of catching the disease to 1%, but comes with a 0.05% chance of growing an extra toe, should you take the vaccine or not, or is there no difference?"
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Word problems? You might as well ask them to prove Fermat's last theorem! Do you want them to graduate or not?
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Oh, judging from the latter half of his comment, I think the parent was joking.
Yeah, that was a classic example of Poe's law [wikipedia.org] if I ever saw one.
Re: oh well (Score:4, Informative)
The number of unvaccinated dead people outshines the number of vaccinated dead people by a considerable margin. Hint, there are still a lot of unvaxed people out there. I guess statistics are beyond your ken. You do know there are stat courses you can take to correct your educational imbalance, yes?
So did you not read the post you were responding to? It was quite obviously poking fun at the anti-vaccination crowd, but I guess you didn't make it past the first line.
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I'll bite. If the vaccines were as effective at preventing death as advertised (hint they are not; actually they don't seem to prevent any excess death in RCTs)
Please provide links to a randomized controlled trial powerful enough to cover deaths. Oh, wait. There haven't been any.
But RCTs do show strong reduction in infection and in severe illness, and it's safe to say that you can't die from COVID if you don't ever get COVID or get seriously ill, so right there, you have fairly solid evidence from RCTs that there would be a reduction in excess deaths if someone were to actually run an RCT that was big enough to... you know... actually have excess deaths.
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The year most people decided that always wearing body armour when leaving the house, was also the year where a lot of people died while walking down the street. Clearly the issue is the body armour, it makes people overheat. The great toddler+machinegun extravaganza organized that year had nothing to do with it!
Yeah, I know you are joking, but at some point, jokes are no longer entertaining. Sorry.
Yep correlation & causation all over again (Score:2)
Two events that coincide are not necessarily caused by one another.
That's also 2 years they have been rolling out 5G. Get off your lazy ass and go torch a few 5G antennas, quick!
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Too extreme, I just put a mask on my 5G antenna.
Re:oh well (Score:4, Insightful)
Fuck me. You Americans really are morons.
Re:oh well (Score:4, Insightful)
Math says that if those above average die in large numbers, average goes down.
Is math controlled by illuminati?
Re:oh well (Score:4, Informative)
what kind of vaccine still lets you get the illness?
Almost all of them? Sterilizing immunity is actually not common or expectable but we have a distorted view of previous illnesses because there was a decades long head start on immunization and limited means of testing compared with today.
We’re Asking the Impossible of Vaccines [theatlantic.com]
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Sure there are some exceptions, but again those are exceptions to the rule.
Other way around. The well known ones are the exception. The dozens of other vaccines people take are the rule.
Re:oh well (Score:4, Insightful)
You realize the flu vaccine doens't give immunity, ir just greatly reduces chance of getting symptoms and reduces symptoms. There are different kinds of diseases, different kinds of immunity Not a lot of diseases fit into a category of "catch it once and you're immune for life afterwards", but you seem to think that this is the normal case. Even then, the smallpox vaccine gives immunity for 3 to 5 years and then they start declining in effectiveness. Rubella and measles are a big problem in children, not so much in adults, so it's not a big deal if the effectiveness of the vaccine declines over time.
Covid-19 is new, and rapidly mutating, so it's amazing tha the vaccine is doing as well as it is. It's drastically reducing symptoms and chance to catch it or have enough viral load to spread it further. The vast majority of death or hospitalization cases last year were from those who were unvaccinated (to be fair, possibly a group less likely to practice social distancing or masking which contributes to the stats).
The distrust is political. People predisposed to already think the virus is a hoax, because Trump downplayed the seriousness (which he admitted he lied about to avoid panic). And idiot politicians claiming that grandma would rather die than hurt the economy. And a disheartening movement that seems to believe any and all rumors.
Ie, myocardial inflammation - no one died from this from the vaccine, it was seen in some kids but it was extremely mild. However myocarditis was a significant problem in those actually catching covid-19. And yet some members of the public reached the wrong conclusion and though it was safer to catch covid than to have a vaccine, because of the myocarditis risk...
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Mod me a troll, I do not care
I care. I very much wish we didn't have to mod you a troll. But in the absence of -1 Unintelligible Idiot, we really can't classify you correctly so troll it is.
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Got COVID anyway
But did you die?
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but what kind of vaccine still lets you get the illness?
Only vaccines that provide sterilizing immunity do that. The measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine you likely received as a child is effectively sterilizing immunity. Smallpox vaccine as well, but people don't usually get that one and there isn't a lot of modern research on it. Lots of vaccines are not sterilizing, like every Influenza vaccine, Tetanus vaccine, etc.
I regret that you misunderstood what you were getting when you got a COVID-19 vaccine. I think the CDC and FDA could have done much better communi
Re:oh well (Score:5, Informative)
The sample to which you refer is the outer coating on the spike protein. Hint: you cannot get sick from that. But please do not take my word for it. Make sure you are unvaccinated and go out and enjoy your new freedom to either die of Covid or fight the long term complications for some time in the future or recover and announce to the world on the basis of your anecdotal evidence that there is nothing to worry about.
Re: oh well (Score:4, Insightful)
To reiterate, saying "you cannot get sick from the spike protein", when there clinically documented cases where people did get sick from it, damages the credibility of the "pro-vaccine" side.
Careful, there. Saying that you cannot get sick from it is not the same thing as saying you cannot be medically harmed by it.
You provably cannot get sick (infected) from the spike protein alone. It has no genetic payload. That doesn't mean you cannot have an immunological response to it. If you didn't, the vaccine wouldn't do anything. And in some cases, that response can be severe. But it is absolutely impossible for you to get sick from it in the traditional sense of the word "sick".
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Sick is 'not healthy'. You can become 'not healthy' from excessive spike proteins. Spike proteins can cross the blood-brain barrier for example and autoimmune diseases (which can be deadly) often are indicated by excessive spike proteins in the blood
No, "not healthy" is "unhealthy", not "sick". Sick is a temporary condition, not something you live with for the rest of your life. Autoimmune diseases are chronic conditions.
Also, there's no reason to believe that any of the people who develop an autoimmune disorder post-vaccination would not have developed that disorder post-infection, and I don't just mean post-COVID-infection. Autoimmune disorders are immune system malfunctions (with a genetic component) whose expression is *triggered* by an illness,
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Nice Tom Lehrer reference! Sorry I don't have mod points, or you would get one.
Naturally most Slashdotters will disagree with you. Obviously the Russians, the Chinese and the Iranians were responsible. Or maybe Mr Trump, the all-purpose scapegoat.
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"the all-purpose scapegoat." Well, he claims to be the center of everything, dunno why then he gets so upset for the blame that comes his way over horrible things. He has two go to responses: (1) I was only kidding, (2) of course I did that, the fact that I am admitting it means I am not responsible for the outcome. He's not the brightest light on the tree.
Feeding the senile trolls doesn't work either (Score:2)
Being charitable to guess he's just senile. I also regard it as plausible that he's dead and the old and insecure password was hacked by a professional troll.
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Everyone does not know this, because it's only being reported on Faux news. They all act like Trump had the pandemic totally under control and then it unravelled. Complaining that there's a shortage of testing kits under Biden forgets that Trump falsely claimed that anyone who wanted a test could get one. Testing has been bad under BOTH presidents, and assigning blame to just one is hypocritical partisanship. So Faux News under Hannity accuses Biden of not taking responsibility, and yet Trump has his pub
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I had a horrible tax increase because of Trump's tax "cuts". He eliminated tax deductions that were common for decades, like being unable to deduct state property tax; probably because he knew that would hurt liberal states who weren't going to re-elect him more than conservative states.
The massive inflation is not due to Biden. Get a grip. Presidents do not have the power to flip a switch and change the economy. It takes time, and with an economy as large as the US it's like trying to steer an angry rh
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I had a horrible tax increase because of Trump's tax "cuts". He eliminated tax deductions that were common for decades, like being unable to deduct state property tax
... while raising the standard deduction so high that you have no longer need to itemize your state property tax. Or anything else.
I'm in a high cost of living liberal state and Trump's new standard deduction was even higher than my mortgage interest AND property tax deduction, AND everything else. So I took the standard deduction for the first time in 20+ years and came out WAY ahead.
So throw out some numbers to back up your claim. Because you're most likely lying.
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The standard deduction is tiny, unless you're poor of course. Anyone with a basic mortgage does better by itemizing. I use either Turbo Tax or H&R (after boycotting intuit), and they're still saying that itemized is better after comparing. Standard deduction is $12,550 for 2021, and I match that just with charitable contributions, and it's much smaller than my state tax deduction if that was still allowed.
Yes, my mortgage interest isn't so high, I'm 20 years in to a 30 year mortgage so it's been decl
Re: oh well, Anonymouse Cowtard is a beta cuck (Score:2)
Stupidity is caused by sock pockets attempting to deceive based on similar named aliases. Hey, I remember the day you made a sock puppet after my name, how about you whip that shit out. Eother way... you like apples, how about them apples?
All Inferences and no Substance (Score:3)
Not a single thing in that article explicitly states these deaths are COVID. Lots of vague references, but nothing explicit. Why? Could it be that the picture is more complicated? That drug deaths are off the charts?
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Could it be that the picture is more complicated? That drug deaths are off the charts?
Worse, surviving people could start to want a single payer system like the rest of the developed world.
Re:All Inferences and no Substance (Score:5, Insightful)
Worse, surviving people could start to want a single payer system like the rest of the developed world.
That will never happen. Those other countries built their single-payer systems from nothing. The American healthcare industry is a monstrosity that swallows up 20% of our GDP. It is the single most powerful special interest that has ever existed in the history of the world. It isn't going away, and any government-run system will be another layer.
America already has THREE "single-payer" healthcare systems: Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA. Together, they provide healthcare to 30% of the population and consume 9% of GDP. That is more than many other countries spend to cover 100% of their populations. So what does that say about the management efficiency of the American government?
That we can just pass a law and suddenly have a healthcare system like Denmark is delusional.
Re: All Inferences and no Substance (Score:5, Informative)
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So what does that say about the management efficiency of the American government?
Nothing, to competent people who know that our private for-profit "healthcare" system is the real problem.
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Re: All Inferences and no Substance (Score:4, Interesting)
We can easily have a public option though, and it would fix a lot of problems. It's the component of the ACA that got cut but is actually the key to making it actually sorta work.
I think if you did that and eliminated or greatly disincentivized employer insurance. Individual marketplace competition combined with a universal option to act as a stabilizer.
And you actually do it pretty quickly in the existing market.
Re:All Inferences and no Substance (Score:5, Interesting)
America already has THREE "single-payer" healthcare systems: Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA. Together, they provide healthcare to 30% of the population and consume 9% of GDP. That is more than many other countries spend to cover 100% of their populations. So what does that say about the management efficiency of the American government?
That we can just pass a law and suddenly have a healthcare system like Denmark is delusional.
Those three programs cover the segments of the population with the most expensive healthcare needs. We cover them with single payer systems because they're not at all viable under a private insurance model.
Medicare covers old people. They're always going to be the most expensive to take care of.
Medicaid is poor people. Spend more on other social programs to prevent people from falling into this category, and their health will improve too. Other countries keep these costs down with better social safety nets.
VA is ex-military. We spend a ton here because we keep a far larger military than anyone else does. Taking care of soldiers after war is going to be expensive. They're going to have more and nastier health issues than the average person.
We make a lot of bad decisions and tend to follow them up by making things worse. Changing one piece of the puzzle isn't going to get us the same efficiency as other countries, but eliminating one of our bigger mistakes will certainly help a lot.
Re:All Inferences and no Substance (Score:5, Insightful)
That we can just pass a law and suddenly have a healthcare system like Denmark is delusional.
No it's not. That's absolutely how it would work. The issue here is you never get that law passed. Look at Obama care. I find it hilarious that it has that name given how it looks nothing like what the Obama administration came up with in the first revision. It would be more accurately called "Republicans-say-no care" that way the name at least reflects the legislative process that resulted in the law.
Though you are right as well. Passing the law is only step one, you'd need to survive a few supreme court challenges by the vested interests. But if they pass then you could have a healthcare system like Denmark, which is nothing more than a healthcare system which follows a set legal framework.
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I find it hilarious that it has that name given how it looks nothing like what the Obama administration came up with in the first revision.
Particularly since the first revision should actually have been called Romneycare.
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You go out of your way to illustrate how broken our system is and then claim it cant be changed because the problem is big.
No thanks, big problems are the ones most worth solving.
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Re:All Inferences and no Substance (Score:5, Interesting)
Where does your impression that the VA does a bad job? It has had it's problems but I think youre ascribing it's reputation unfairly. It's approval ratings have been over 70 to 80% for a long time, it's become a focus issue for both parties in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan. Approval was over 90% in 2020:
Veteran trust in VA health care rises above 90 percent for the first time [va.gov]
Anectdotally both my grandather (WWII) and father (Vietnam) have both used the VA for years and they absolutely prefer it over their private doctors. My dad in fact avoided it for a long time because of that reputation and they have helped him with his hearing aids, getting additional payout over agent orange, psychological help, etc. I am sure there are nightmare stories about it as well but god knows the private insurance market has no lack of those.
It doesn't matter anyway until you can show me a develped country with a healthcare system that is as equal or more "free market" than the US system that is cheaper per capita and has better health outcomes. (I'll give you a head start, it doesn't exist). We pay far and above the most and don't get anywhere close to returns on it. Can we compromise on a good multipayer/public option/Germany type system?
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It doesn't matter anyway until you can show me a develped country with a healthcare system that is as equal or more "free market" than the US system that is cheaper per capita and has better health outcomes. ... you must be living under a rock.
Basically every other country
US has the worst for low level income, and the most expensive health care system of the world.
And on top of that you refuse to get mandatory healthcare when you travel to countries that demand it, e.g. Thailand.
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And on top of that you refuse to get mandatory healthcare when you travel to countries that demand it, e.g. Thailand.
What?
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A quick summary: https://www.vox.com/2014/9/26/... [vox.com]
https://www.advisory.com/daily... [advisory.com]
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Yes, the VA has and has had it's share of problems but none of that is unique to the VA versus private insurance which have oodles of wait times, denied claims and unetherical behavior. Indeed in that very story there is a list of measures taken by the admin and Congress to improve conditions. Bernie Sanders the next year in 2015 spearheaded a bill that improved conditions and indeed Trump approved an additional addendum that seems to have improved things even more.
No system is going to be perfect but as
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Re:All Inferences and no Substance (Score:5, Insightful)
Not a single thing in that article explicitly states these deaths are COVID. Lots of vague references, but nothing explicit. Why? Could it be that the picture is more complicated? That drug deaths are off the charts?
How much more explicit do you need than 1 MILLION deaths [worldometers.info] in the last 2 years?
Look at https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fasta... [cdc.gov] and tell me where did "drug death" rank in the list? Hint: it is not even there (yeah, really "off" the charts, LOL). While Covid is ranked 3rd cause of death after heart disease and cancer.
How much in denial do one needs to be to deny that a brand new cause of death popping up into 3rd most common cause was not the major contributor to lowering of life expectancy?
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Got any non-paywalled articles? You know, valid citations? Nobody wants walletbait.
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it's not like non-covid mortality is up 40%
It's not like that. Obviously.
The US had ~2.8 million deaths in 2019 [prb.org] and ~3.4 million deaths in 2020, 350k of which were from COVID [cdc.gov]. Non-COVID deaths increased by 9%.
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It's not like that. Obviously.
The US had ~2.8 million deaths in 2019 and ~3.4 million deaths in 2020, 350k of which were from COVID. Non-COVID deaths increased by 9%.
It is not correct to simply compare 2019 with 2020. You have to account for overall trends which have been ticking up as the population ages for a number of years prior to covid.
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You can't look at the data this way at all, because an 85 year old who died of COVID was also very likely to die of something else if COVID did not exist. As such, looking at how many people died of COVID as an absolute number is quite frankly not relevant. You need to look at what is called "excess mortality", which is the study of how many *extra deaths* were caused beyond what would already be expected.
Here is a view of excess mortality during the pandemic:
https://ourworldindata.org/gra... [ourworldindata.org]
As you can see,
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Not a single thing in that article explicitly states these deaths are COVID
Yep. It's aliens. That's the only logical explanation. I mean if we discount pandemic or disease related issue which has been documented in every country which has so far experienced COVID, then the only thing left to consider is something that caused a huge government coverup.
Aliens it is.
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You want the picture to be *more* complicated? Well, the number of excess deaths (i.e., more than statistically expected) in the US for 2020 was 470,000; the number of *COVID* deaths was only 352,000. Some of the 120,000 difference is probably COVID undercount -- e.g. there were huge numbers of "flu/pneumonia" (they're lumped together for mortality reporting) deaths reported after flu season should have ended that were probably COVID deaths. But some were likely collateral damage -- people who needed tr
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They also use paper money, have internet, public services like electricity. I see a pattern.
Was already going down (Score:3, Interesting)
It should be noted that life expectancy had already been on a downward trajectory for most of the 2010s.
Yet again (although I don't like to make this comparison) it seems that Covid accelerated existing trends more than it started new ones.
But perhaps the biggest one is yet to truly manifest. In 2019 I was getting the feeling the economy would probably tank in the next 5 or 6 years, seeming to be there was an everything-bubble. Looking at just stocks, they were already overvalued before the pandemic. They dipped down for a couple months and then promptly rebounded to an even bigger bubble - and they called it a "recovery". The real crash, the big one, still hasn't happened.
I hear the finance/economist eggheads have now given it a date of 2023. Sounds about right from what I see here in the trenches. Marking this post for posterity so I can link back to it... Hello, future Slashdot! Greetings from the past.
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Wow, you're predicting a looming recession when the world is dealing with left overs from Covid, major inflation issues for most countries, and a war along with sanctions wreaking havoc on the markets.
Your prophetic powers are truly amazing! What's next? Days will get longer in the Northern Hemisphere as we move closer to Summer?
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First, life expectancy went up from 2010 to 1014 (+2%), then went down from 2015-18 (-3%). Not a real decline.
The stock market is a combination of psychology and fundamentals. Fundamentals tend to drive the main market direction - and stop falls.
Psychology is all about what people think is going to happen. Every single bubble was about overly optimistic beliefs. Every single recovery from the drop is about fundamentals.
Moreover, there has been not one stockmarket fall since the beginning of covid, but
Comparing to peers. (Score:2)
Where it went down both years:
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But what of those still alive? (Score:3)
US ranked 46th (Score:4, Interesting)
It's worth pointing out that the US has serious problems: The US ranks 46th in the world for life expectancy [worldometers.info]. This is not due to Covid, which hit everywhere. Likely it is due to a combination of Obamacare (the worst of all possible health insurance systems) plus a seriously unhealthy lifestyle (widespread obesity).
This is part of a long-term trend. [worldlifeexpectancy.com] In 1980, the US ranked 18th, in 1990 21st, in 2000 29th, in 2010 30th. Now, in 2022, 46th.
Re: US ranked 46th (Score:3)
Obamacare is certainly no panacea compared to what's in place in almost any other country on earth, but it's still a godsend compared o the previous US system where you could and likely would be denied coverage for having ever been sick before, aka you had a pre-existing condition, in US insurance speak.
Average IQ going up then? (Score:4, Insightful)
Think of it as evolution in action.
Manipulation through propaganda (Score:2, Interesting)
"... so many people ... dramatic plummet ... a horrible loss ... actually drove the life expectancy even lower ... very disturbing ... extensive loss of life ... Many of the deaths occurred in people in the prime of their lives ... the horrible drop in life expectancy ... continued decline. Unfortunately, we did not find good news." The use of this kind of language just screams "I have an agenda", whether that agenda is for more money through eyeballs or generating FUD to drive political support to some en
Short lifespan in the US (Score:2)
"The analysis of provisional government statistics found U.S. life expectancy fell by just under a half a year in 2021". That's what I call a really short life. You don't even get enough time to fill it with some joy. [:)]
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"fell by" does not mean the same as "fell to"
I guess.... (Score:2)
....for those folks who view America as the root of everything bad in the world, this is a win!
Wouldn't they just be thin anyways? (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, lockdowns are at worst a wash and at best a net benefit. Less time commuting means more time to go for walks/jogs. Also less stress from office/playground politics. And the places that did/do lockdowns rebound economically faster, since they're not reeling from an ongoing pandemic.
COVID is going to kill a *lot* though. 23 million have long covid, and when they get a bit older and start having strokes and heart attacks stuff that might've been minor won't be.
And that's not to say it hasn't already killed 1 million on record and by all accounts at least another 2 million "off the record" (e.g. "unexplained" increases in deaths that for some odd reason seem limited to red states...)
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I lost 10 pounds since the pandemic started just from not having access to all the junk food at the office. Every day someone brings donuts, croissants, or girl scout cookies.
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Variants (Score:4, Insightful)
Also nobody stays out of the hospital. There was a doctor who said it best (I'm paraphrasing): everybody shows up at the ER when they can't breath. And nurses and doctors want to help people. They're not going to turn them away for being unvaxxed, at least not without some powerful conditioning like was done back in the day with race...
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Since there is a significant political bias involved and Covid is killing more GQP supporters than left-wing voters, I am with you! Let them be killed by their own stupidity!
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What are you on about? Punishment? Am I getting spanked?
The idea that there are winners and losers in politics is exactly why this country is not great. You hate people simply because they have differing opinions and use democracy to implement those opinions when they win?
This is not how adults think. I am a libertarian and I have never once in my life dreamed of winning to punish those anti-constitutionalist GOP and Democrats who are destroying this country. I simply hope we can win and affect positive cha
Re: Wouldn't they just be thin anyways? (Score:2)
You're probably the nicest libertarian I've ever seen. Most libertarians I have met are edgelord trolls who laugh at the misfortune of everyone that they deem as "socilaist" (about 90 percent of the population)
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I want to live in a strong nation that values freedom as the highest ideal. I don't want to harm anyone. I don't want to win.
In fact, despite my desires and ideals, I'd much rather see cooperation and action in the best interest of society done democratically than a libertarian candidate getting elected and using presidential orders or other tactics to 'own' anyone or force their ideals on anyone.
To be truly free is to be free to live who you are. I say this with the caveat that society is built on social c
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You're probably the nicest libertarian I've ever seen. Most libertarians I have met are edgelord trolls who laugh at the misfortune of everyone that they deem as "socilaist" (about 90 percent of the population)
I know a lot of libertarians, and I don't know any like what you describe. They're all pretty much like FictionPimp, except that many also support social welfare programs, though they'd prefer to implement them in less market-distorting ways.
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And this worsens over time. One of the congress members called those three Republicans who did voted to approve, "pro-pediphilia". Granted, there is always dumb stuff on capital hill, because congress has a quota for morons, but that sets a new record for stupid. Of course Republicans mostly filed out without a cursory half hearted applause; but Democrats did the same filing out when the previous supreme court judge was affirmed. Probably most of the judges there now think to themselves at times "did I
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Are you going to personally come spank me? Who is spanking me? Should I dress up?
How am I being owned anymore when a GOP president is elected than I am now? All I see are anti-constitutional parties consolidating power. The democrats and the GOP are turning America into a battleground because they care more about winning than governing.
What is a drug problem? Why should we concern ourselves with the behavior of others if it does not harm us? Let people kill themselves. The real answer would be to support pr
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If children are dying, why do we not punish the parents? Why do you seem to want to abdicate personal responsibility to the government? Are you not responsible for your choices?
I see no cities in ruins, I see a lot of FUD about cities in ruins. That said, if a city wants to vote for terrible practices who am I to stand in their way? I do not need to live in that city?
You have some kind of win/lose attitude to politics. You see to believe there can be no compromise, only winning. Now you are projecting belie
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I aggressively got vaccinated, which means I had my third dose by Christmas, but I am the very small minority. Right now only 60% has two doses and 25% has three. Vaccine being available does nothing if we donâ(TM)t use it. But even with that lo
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Most people I know stopped going to the gym and leaving the house during the lockdown.
It's entirely possible that some people did become increasingly sedentary due to Covid lockdowns. However, if you're going to play the correlation is causation card, there were actually less obese people in the world prior to the advent of modern gyms. Therefore, I submit that it is in fact the gyms which are making people fat.
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GOP controlled states such as Florida have spent the last year removing control from localities. This is much like the federal government removing states rights (such as saying California can't 'have stricter standards than the feds). Any time you remove power from the smallest form of government you reduce freedom.
Citizens are best governed as close to them as possible. What happened to republicans? They used to be fiscally conservative and all for small government. When I was faced with a choice between n
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The southern states were all for states' rights, not small government. The original beef was about being allowed to have slaves without interference. After the civil war, states' rights meant beng allowed segregationist policies without interference from the feds. This southern style of conservatism at the time was in the Democrat party, and it migrated to the Republican party after the civil rights era. Northern conservatism was more about things like economics and individual rights (except in cases of
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Sure. If it makes you feel better, go with that. I voted for for GOP presidential candidates until Trump. I still vote for GOP candidates in my state for governor because ours is not an idiot. I do not vote for my states GOP candidates if a libertarian is running. I do not vote for GOP candidates for congress or senate as the ones in my state are insane.
I have simple rules for government.
1. Be as small as possible, both parties can not do this today.
2. Govern as locally as possible. The GOP used to talk abo
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Are you ideological blinders so strong you cant see why? My Dad was a Republican for ages but left when he realized they were absolutely not a fiscally conservative party anymore. He already didnt have any use for the social conservatives so he figured he'd get away from those jerks and go with the party that hasnt blown up the national debt every single time they've had a president in office for well over half a century.
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Right, if neither party is going to be fiscally conservative, let's vote for the one that is giving us more freedoms. The rights of people to live as they see fit and have full fulfilling lives without the government telling them where they can live, who they can marry, where they pee, what they consume, or who they can have sex is just as important and the fiscal conservation that no longer appears in either party.
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Well unless you're part of the 1% or a bible thumper you won't get much from that Republican vote but have fun with that.
Just take a single issue like illegal immigration. I care about this issue and think too many illegal immigrants come into this country. The Democrats aren't likely to do much about this so what is the Republican solution? Build a giant massively expensive wall.
What complete and utter stupidity. If that was completed we might have seen a 1% drop in illegal immigration. People die crossing
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Trump is the real deal in that he is a psychological mutant.
He reminds me of the Mule in the Foundation Trilogy.
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let's instead pander to a bunch of good ol' boys who can't stop thinking about what consenting adults do with their genitals.
If only it was just adults that they were thinking about...
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Democrats aren't "in power" in any real way. When DINOs like Manchin and Sinema block meaningful legislation and a right-ring SCOTUS tears apart any meaningful attempts to fix what the Rethuglicans broke, we're still suffering under Rethuglican control.
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That would have been funny a few years ago, but we've since discovered that this is a real possibility. I mean, they're drinking industrial bleach, for goodness sake.
In 2019, the GOP stripped $40 million from the budget for lead pipe replacement because a lot of it was going to end up helping Milwaukee. Really.
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The GOP also will likely tank the bill to regulate insulin prices when it reaches the Senate. Like that comedian said, they're pro-birth, not pro-life.
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Make no mistake, the only reason insulin is expensive is price gouging. That's it.
Watch as the GQP tank the bill that fixes the cost of insulin at $35/month in the senate. These people are absolutely disgusting.
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No, it's 100% price gouging.
Re:In related news (Score:4, Informative)
Sock puppets keep modding this garbage up. If you're paying out of pocket it's cheaper to Germany round trip and buy a months worth of insulin there. This chart says it all.
https://www.rand.org/blog/rand... [rand.org]
$98.70 in the USA and the next most expensive country is Japan at $14.40...
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