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The biggest threat to our national well-being

Dec 2, 2019, 5:54 PM

health care, life expectancy, new health insurance law, Virginia Mason...

(AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

(AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

Despite strong economic growth of recent years, an even more important number tells a much less encouraging story.

For three years in a row now, we’ve suffered an unprecedented decline in life expectancy—with self-inflicted harm striking more Americans in the prime of life. The lead author of a new study for the American Medical Association says, “the whole country is at a disadvantage compared to other wealthy nations.”

Pete Buttigieg too young for the presidency?

While people around the world enjoy steady increases in longevity, America has been moving in the wrong direction for the first time in a century.

Experts say prime causes are drug overdoses, suicides, and alcoholism—“deaths of despair” that inflict a horrible toll, despite declining rates of crime and poverty, and dramatic improvements in medical care.

Prospective leaders in an election year must confront this threat to our national well-being that prematurely steals spouses, parents, neighbors and work colleagues from those who need them.

FILE - Dolly Parton poses for a photo at her office in Nashville, Tenn., Aug. 11, 2005. (AP Photo/J...

Associated Press

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The biggest threat to our national well-being