Life expectancy of U.S. women slips in some regions

Reporting from Washington—
Women in large swaths of the U.S. are dying younger than they were a generation ago, reversing nearly a century of progress in public health and underscoring the rising toll of smoking and record obesity.

Nationwide, life expectancy for American men and women has risen over the last two decades, and some U.S. communities still boast life expectancies as long as any in the world, according to newly released data. But over the last decade, the nation has experienced a widening gap between the most and least healthy places to live. In some parts of the United States, men and women are dying younger on average than their counterparts in nations such as Syria, Panama and Vietnam.

Overall, the United States is falling further behind other industrialized nations, many of which have also made greater strides in cutting child mortality and reducing preventable deaths.

In 737 U.S. counties out of more than 3,000, life expectancies for women declined between 1997 and 2007. For life expectancy to decline in a developed nation is rare. Setbacks on this scale have not been seen in the U.S. since the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918, according to demographers.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-na-womens-health-20110615,0,7351576.story

and have put off going to the doctor. This seems bogus to me. The fat, smoking women are dropping dead. It does not address the fact that stress from living in America is hard on the women who are trying to hold families together without jobs, health care and in many cases homes. Let's blame the fat smokers for screwing up our averages.

We are falling behind Industrialized nations because we no longer have medical care available. And those with coverage fear finding a disease that will bankrupt that family and possibly cause the family home to be foreclosed. I haven't heard the number lately but several years ago bankruptcy in the US was the result of medical problems 50% of the time. I don't buy this study.

I was in an assisted living facility yesterday and overheard the nurse say that she does not have health insurance. It is crazy that even our employed women in the health industry do not have insurance. Go figure!

I avoid medical care because of the cost and also because what sort of care you get has become so distorted by the profit motive. You are on your own. And yet lots of health care providers are not doing well financially either.

we do the deductibles and copays STILL keep us from being able to afford medical care.