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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