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America Ranks 41st in Life Spans
Why Is the US Falling Behind?
By Susan Callahan

In America, we take understandable pride in
being Number One. We are, after all, the richest
people on Earth.  We have the largest military.
We’re still the only country to have put a man
on the moon.

Why then are we only the 41st (yes, you read
that right) longest living people on the planet?
According to the latest report by the U.S.
Census Bureau, an American baby born in 2004
can expect to live 77.9 years. That’s over 4
years less than a Japanese baby, who can
expect to live a full 82  years.  


  "Something's wrong here when one of the
richest countries in the world, the one that
spends the most on health care, is not able to
keep up with other countries," said Dr.
Christopher Murray, head of the Institute for
Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University
of Washington, in an article reported by the
Associated Press.  Americans rank behind
countries like France (80.4), Sweden (80.3) and
Canada (80.0). In fact we rank behind most of
Europe, and even  one Middle Eastern country
(Jordan). What’s going on?  Some of the
difference – a tiny bit –is attributable to racial
disparities in life spans. White Americans
actually live about 78.3 years according to the
CDC ---still about 4 years shorter than the
Japanese or six years shorter than some
Europeans--- while African Americans can
expect to live 73.3 years.  Researchers explain
the alarming gap in life spans to a combination
of inadequate health insurance, obesity and
lifestyle factors such as stress. Countries such
as England, Canada and France have national
health coverage which may explain some of the
gap.  People with health coverage are more
likely to seek medical attention immediately
when they need it, rather than wait until the
problem gets worse and their health
deteriorates.  This problem of non-existent
health coverage plagues about 47 million of us.  
And the remaining 253 million of us with health
insurance often encounter a health care system
that seems more intent on denying us coverage
than ensuring our access to health care. In fact,
many life-or-death health decisions are no
longer made solely by you and your doctor.
Instead, these decisions are ultimately made by
HMOs.  If you are denied coverage by some
person –who may no even be a medical doctor –
in some cubicle at an HMO, you do have a right
to appeal.  If you survive long enough to win
the appeal, then you may be able to finally get
the coverage you have paid premiums to get.  
Of course, if you win your appeal, you better
not get sick again. Most HMOs have many
loopholes which give them the right to not
renew your insurance contract in the next
renewal period.  That’s not right or fair –but
then again it was probably not fair to deny you
coverage in the first place.  Of course, you can
appeal the non-renewal to some court and
spend the remainder of your shortened lives
fighting HMOs, right?  A lot of Americans caught
up in this crazy maze have started heading for
the EXIT sign.  You may have heard the new
growing trend of “medical vacations”.  BBC
News (owned by The British Broadcasting
Company) ran a report on September 14, 2007,
about India’s attempts to become a medical
tourism destination. In the report, a woman
from Oregon explained that she had traveled
from Oregon to Mumbai, India for a hip
replacement.  The woman explained that her
health insurance would have required her to pay
20% of the cost.  Apparently, even after
factoring in the cost of a plane ticket for a 5000
mile trip and the costs for a hotel and food, it
was still cheaper to have the operation in
Mumbai than in Oregon.  Which leaves lifestyle
factors ---- stress, obesity?  We Americans are,
to put it impolitely, fat.  The latest research
reports put the number of overweight or obese
Americans at 67%.  That's two out of three of
us.  Americans under 30 may be the first
generation which will die at an earlier age than
their parents.  As for stress, that factor is hard
to pin down. We Americans work longer hours
for many more years than any other people in
the industrialized world.  We take an average of
less than a week of vacation per year.
Europeans average total vacation time of 6 to 8
weeks. A recent survey by KFC reported that
62% of us believe that the one hour lunch is
“the biggest myth of working life”.  MSNBC
reported that many of us take only a half hour
for lunch and plenty of us eat at our desks.  Job
security has all but vanished for the current
generation of us working. And because older
Americans – our parents — are on average
sicker than, say,  Europeans and Japanese and
Canadians for longer periods of their mature
years, working Americans often find ourselves
sandwiched between the need to care for aging
parents and kids. So, while it’s hard to pin down
exactly what kind of stress may be killing us off
sooner than the rest of the industrialized world,
we have plenty of candidate stressors which
may be to blame.  How do we close the gap?  
Much of it is beyond our fixing immediately. But
surely, we can work on the problem of obesity.
Doctors say losing even a few pounds, especially
around the middle, can add years of healthy
living.   
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