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Life Expectancy Hits 78; Good Or Bad News?

13 September 2007 No Comment

Americans can now expect to live about 28,470 days as long as they’re white and male now.  If you’re female, you get to live longer; if you’re black, shorter.

The improvement was led by a drop in deaths from heart disease and stroke — two of the nation’s leading killers, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, which released the new life expectancy report Wednesday.

My question is:  is this a good or bad thing?  Logic says “definitely a good thing!  Let’s all live to be 100!”  So let’s take a look at it.

The Good:

  • Living longer and healthier.
  • Americans seem to be making progress in health care and medicine.
  • Quality of life is probably improved as well.
  • As one book says, if we live long enough, we can live long enough to experience technology that prolongs our lives even more.

The Bad:

  • We’re already going to have to take up the tab for Baby Boomers’ Social Security.  Now that everyone’s living longer, we’re going to pay Beatles-level taxes just to keep up.
  • More people living that long just means more old people.  Do we really need more old people?  This doesn’t apply to old people you or I know.

What’s your opinion?

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