One question I have regarding those results is this:
Say you determine which socio-economic quartile people lie in at the point they reach 65, and then target extra healthcare/benefits/resources at the bottom quartile (or fifth or whatever).
Can you increase their life expectancy to match that of the upper quartile, or have life choices (eg smoking, poor diet) before age 65 largely predetermined the life expectancy of the lower quartile group?
Which loses somewhere between $60-100B to fraud each year AND is more likely to deny coverage than private. (Since the "top execs salaries and profits" of private are <$10B/year ....) Oh, and MDs tend to abandon Medicare when given the choice.
But, Medicare can physically cut a check for almost nothing.
Clearly you can't make it equal because some of the people in that group have already died before 65. Of those remaining, almost some have certainly already experience negative health effects that have lowered their life expectancy. One thing to note is that we do have single payer health care for those over 65, so lack of health care over that age is less probable. So likely a lot of the current difference can't be addressed at 65 and over.
It would be very interesting if this data were broken down both by more than just income, e.g. ethnicity [1] and immigration status. Unfortunately, the effect being described could easily be caused solely by composition changes.
A hypothesis I'd love to see tested: immigrants have shorter life expectancies [2] and are more likely to be in the bottom 50%. Therefore, an increased proportion of immigrants reduces the average life expectancy of the bottom 50%.
[1] Ethnic gaps in life expectancy are huge. Asians life 10 years more than blacks, for example.
[2] Might be tough to get data on this. My understanding is that immigrant life expectancy data is weak because many immigrants go back home to die (which skews the numbers).
To be more precise, what I wanted was a breakdown by (income, race, immigrant status) 3-tuples.
I.e., I'd like to know how much life expectancy has increased for top 25% white males vs bottom 50% white males, same for black males, same for hispanic non-immigrant males, hispanic immigrant males, etc.
I think it will make the middle class and below broke, but the rich will, as they always do, come out OK. By all measures I've seen over the last few years, the top earners in this country are doing better, by far.
There are so many ways this could be lying with statistics:
1) Healthier people work more - does this include the disabled? Having morbidly obese or disabled who earn little and live shorter lives will skew the stats.
2) Poorer people eat less healthily and have higher obesity, so the implications for policy are not straightforward
3) Smarter more educated people both earn more AND make better life choices, such as taking fewer dangerous drugs. There is a correlation between having the capability to manage a working career and manage your own life.
4) Those who engage in many unhealthy activities, such as alcoholism, will diminish their earnings capacity.
There are more, but that should be sufficient to breed some skepticism.
Earning power and longevity are interdependent variables. They are so closely tied that any correlation needs to be carefully examined.
Agreed, with one quibble. Alcohol usage is inversely parabolically correlated with earning power and life expectancy. Even self reported heavy drinkers earn slightly more and live slightly longer than than complete abstainers.
I would really like to see some of those countries that were compared to split out similarly. Its possible for example (although probably not the case) that in Japan the lowest 25% of income people are even far lower, but the top 75% is much higher.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 77.5 ms ] threadSay you determine which socio-economic quartile people lie in at the point they reach 65, and then target extra healthcare/benefits/resources at the bottom quartile (or fifth or whatever).
Can you increase their life expectancy to match that of the upper quartile, or have life choices (eg smoking, poor diet) before age 65 largely predetermined the life expectancy of the lower quartile group?
Then everyone has an interest in generally reducing smoking and bettering diets.
But, Medicare can physically cut a check for almost nothing.
In what country do folks say "I better not do {whatever} because it will result in higher health care costs for me paid by others?"
Even if there are such countries, do you expect to find many such people in the US?
Reminder - it doesn't matter what works/doesn't work in other countries. What matters as far as the US is concerned is what works here.
A hypothesis I'd love to see tested: immigrants have shorter life expectancies [2] and are more likely to be in the bottom 50%. Therefore, an increased proportion of immigrants reduces the average life expectancy of the bottom 50%.
[1] Ethnic gaps in life expectancy are huge. Asians life 10 years more than blacks, for example.
[2] Might be tough to get data on this. My understanding is that immigrant life expectancy data is weak because many immigrants go back home to die (which skews the numbers).
I.e., I'd like to know how much life expectancy has increased for top 25% white males vs bottom 50% white males, same for black males, same for hispanic non-immigrant males, hispanic immigrant males, etc.
There are more, but that should be sufficient to breed some skepticism.
Earning power and longevity are interdependent variables. They are so closely tied that any correlation needs to be carefully examined.