Public Policies Affect Life Expectancy
News and Actions June 5, 2023
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Life Expectancy - Houston We have. Problem
Recently, this newsletter reported on the CDCs latest Life Expectancy results. What was noted was that most countries experienced a decline due to COVID-19. The shocker was that while most countries of the industrialized world’s life expectancy began to return to pre pandemic levels and more, ours in the US continued to decline. In fact, much of Europe is in the low to mid 80’s we are at about 76 and dropping. Here is one of the CDC reports.
There are several problems. According to Dr. Steve Woolf, the US is now ranks at about 50th in life expectancy and continues to decline. He found that US southern and midwestern states had the lowest numbers.
The Population Reference Bureau, recently published a review of research into Life Expectancy in the US. Montez et al, investigated this problem looking for any relationship between state policies and mortality and built a ranking that measured how conservative a state is. Below is a graphic of that ranking.
Part of the problem has been pushing policy decisions from the federal level to the states over time for programs like minimum wage, Medicaid and Welfare, marijuana access, and gun control.
Stated have divergent opinions about each of these policies. Policy divergence led to life expectancy divergence. In 1959 the variance between states was 5.5 years, in 2019 it is 7.1 years.
Jennifer Montez and her team also found a host of policies that states implement that were real drivers. These are liberal environmental, labor rights, economic taxes, tobacco taxes, conservative marijuana policies, and stricter gun safety. All of these led to higher life expectancy and lower mortality.
In particular, gun safety laws were associated with a lower suicide risk among men, labor protections like minimum wage and paid leave were tied to a lower risk of alcohol-related death, and tobacco taxes and economic taxes were linked to a lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease.
Marijuana tended to lead to depressive disorders and so controlling it had an effect on controlling related suicides.
This article did not address the issue but since there are abortion bans in 50% of the US now there will be another 1000 women who die from pregnancy related issues and that will make the numbers worse yet again.
If all states had the most liberal policies, 171,030 lives might have been saved in 2019. But enacting the most conservative policies might have cost 217,635 lives.
If you are old enough to remember Pogo, the cartoon above is for you, “We have met the enemy and he is us”.
Look, it is clear, when states decide to restrict services, like Medicaid, foster poor working conditions and wages, let so many people have access to firearms the result is obvious, more people die earlier. The problem is within our grasp to fix. Universal Healthcare HR 3421 can only do so much. We also need federal policies that address gun safety measures, labor and wage and tax laws consistent with our current economy, fair environmental laws that protect people’s health, and some kind of controls on substances people use to self medicate (tobacco, alcohol, marijuana). Its a lot but we can tell our representatives to get in gear and get to work.
ACTION
Use RESISTBOT (text SIGN PBICPV to 50409) or call or email your congressional representative and senators (their contact info is in the References Section) and tell them something like:
“ Hi. My name is [name] and I live in [zipcode] and I am your constituent. Life expectancy for Americans is worse than our peer industrialized nations and getting worse daily. Ours is declining (down to 76) and theirs is increasing (82 and above) even after COVID. A recent article in the Journal of the Population Research Bureau (Jan 12, 2023) found that it is related to policies in place at state levels. More liberal healthcare, labor, environmental, tax polices and more stringent gun safety measures led to longer lives. People in states that have the.opposite die sooner. If all states had such liberal policies over 170,000 lives world have been saved in 2019 alone.
You can fix so much of this. I want you to cosponsor and support HR3421, Improved Medicare For All. I want you to build tougher federal gun safety and ownership laws - that will save the lives of many of the 48,000 gunshot casualties each year. I want you to create a federal living minimum wage that really matches where the economy is, not $7.25/hour. You can do it and you can save those lives. Do it.”
References
Find My Elected Officials
Contact the White House https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Contact State and Federal Representatives
https://www.commoncause.org/find-your-representative/addr/
Important Healthcare Resources
League of Women Voters Healthcare Reform Toolkit
Our Newsletter resources including reproductive healthcare
Healthcare Advocacy Reading List
Organizations to Contact
NARAL - Pro Choice America
Planned Parenthood
Physicians for a National Health Plan
Claims Denials and Appeals & What to Do
Appeal a Healthcare Decision
Appeal/Negotiate a Hospital Bill
Save Democracy
Chop Wood, Carry Water by Jessica Cravens
RESISTBOT
Link to the RESISTBOT site to learn more
Link to Chop Wood, Carry Water Resistbot write up