Life Expectancy

For all of the criticism of healthcare in the United States, something’s obviously working right.  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, life expectancy in the U.S. has now reached nearly 78 years, an all-time high.  There’s no mystery as to the leading reason for this gain. 

Today’s healthcare professionals are constantly finding more effective ways to combat deadly diseases.  The death rate from heart disease dropped five percent in 2007.  The cancer fatality rate fell two percent.  The HIV death rate saw its largest one-year decline – 10 percent – in a decade.

As the blog Serious Medicine Strategy put it, “Are we overweight, too many of us?  Yes.  Do many or most of us not get enough exercise?  Yes.  But are we still doing better?  Yes.  So, let’s be careful about pulling apart the system we have.”