Living longer? Not in US
By Derrick Z. Jackson
Globe Columnist / June 28, 2011


ONE FALSEHOOD must end in the raging debates on Medicare, Medicaid, and
health reform. In their denunciation of reform, Republicans from House
Speaker John Boehner to Tea Party presidential candidate Michele
Bachmann boast we already have the world’s best health system. Last week
Representative Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee spiced up the rhetoric by
saying reform is “destroying the greatest health care system the world’s
ever known.’’

No one doubts we have some of the most advanced medical technologies,
research, and facilities. But if you measure systems by life expectancy,
the United States, at 37th in the world for both men and women, is not
even close to having the best. As Republicans continue to demonize what
little reform we have agreed to, life expectancy for American women is
dropping as never before in some sections of the nation.

Researchers at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health
Metrics and Evaluation this month published a county-by-county analysis
of life expectancy. From 1987 to 1997, there were 227 counties where
female life expectancy dropped. From 1997 to 2007, the number of
counties where women’s life expectancy dropped exploded to 737.

Comparisons with the rest of the developed world are more appalling. Of
the nation’s 3,147 counties, nearly two-thirds — 2,054 — fell further
behind life expectancies for women in the 10 longest-living countries.
This is despite the United States having the world’s highest per-capita
health spending.

Christopher Murray, the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and
Evaluation, said his research team expected to find regional and racial
disparities, but the overall breadth of the backward movement was
stunning. He said that several negative trends were hitting American
women all at once. “Men were big smokers in the 1950s and have cut back
since,’’ Murray said. “Women started later and we are now seeing the
damage done by this wave of women smokers. Obesity also hits women
harder than men, and this is a huge factor nationwide. With high blood
pressure, we know from previous studies that women are not being
diagnosed or treated at the same level.’’

for mo

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