justin_o_guy2 wrote on 10/16/19 at 07:24:31:U.S. life expectancy declines for the first time since ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health...
Dec 08, 2016 · For the first time in more than two decades, life expectancy for Americans declined last year — a troubling development linked to a panoply of worsening health problems in the United States.
Stop pretending the things you've seen happened after Trump.
Note, twenty years ago, you weren't born yet. Trends may be distorted or ill apprehended when outsized granularity is applied to consideration. A trend line looks like a Richter scale on close examination- pundits love to zoom in to illustrate a lie, only to shrink back when the lie is made plain by a broader view.
Justin suggests using declining life expectancy as example of a not great thing is an example of such a lie. That conclusion presumes my standard is highly granular. Well, it ain’t. Yes, there have been transient dips over the last 50 years. A passing staccato is not worthy of citation. Transient is not where we are at today, and our sampling is not restricted to our view in late 2016- rather, a sustained divergence is evident.
It was not suggested by me that the regression in life expectancy trends was instigated by the 2016 election- but, since you mention it, the results may have been symptomatic of discontent with trends at the time, generally. The statistics only affirmed the sense of growing sickness. As to the continuation of that trend, efforts to dismantle mechanisms of the Affordable Care Act surely contribute.
The proposition was, to paraphrase, “everything is awesome”. Well, it ain’t- and sustained life expectancy regression is most definitely one example of “not awesome”.