Posted by
D W W Robertson on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 7:34:26 PM
US Life Expectancy Falls for Large Segment of Population
By Rosanne Skirble
Washington
22 April 2008
The study analyzed health data from every county in the United States. According to lead author , Associate Professor of International health at the "worst off" were among lower income Americans concentrated in the southern states.
He says in these communities race did not seem to affect life expectancy.
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Since you have the racism police force led by Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton out there, I thought that a little balance could be useful. Here is a case, one among many, when problems are not racial in nature.
Just one small instance that goes to show racism is a largely a thing of the past.
What is the problem according to Ezzarti?
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"It is something associated with the way policies are implemented, with the way health systems are providing health services to people in different parts of the country or not providing services to people."
Ezzati says, “That monitoring should be telling us something about what sort of interventions, what sort of policies can reverse this and then hopefully provide the resources for it.”
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Why is it assumed that “policies” need to be changed? I’m not opposed to helping more people get healthcare, but it is a personal choice to smoke and to have an unhealthy diet, which are the reasons the article cites for the decline in life expectancy for women. The reason I’m opposed to changing policies to deal with the problem is because usually policy makers mess things up and drive up costs for everyone. I know the intentions are good, but sometimes the answer is personal responsibility and not policy change.