Everyone's not getting older equally | Hacker News Reader

Everyone's not getting older equally

theincidentaleconomist.com

33 pointsHealthNutX3422 comments

Raising the retirement age will not effect everyone equally evidently!

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.

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).

By race here: http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/subtleties-of-li... .

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.

Fortunately, the current policy of national insolvency will address the situation by making us all equally broke.

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.

You're probably right, but it's not the kind of strategy that is sustainable long term.

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?

But why this jumping through hoops when for less money the US could have universal healthcare like every other civilized country?

Then everyone has an interest in generally reducing smoking and bettering diets.

> Then everyone has an interest in generally reducing smoking and bettering diets.

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.

For people over age 65, we do have a single-payer healthcare system: it is called Medicare.

There's also Medicaid, which is universal national coverage for all children and most adults near the poverty line.

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.

Why would we expect anything to be equal? People don't eat equally healthy. They don't exercise equally.

I wonder how the second chart would look if all countries were split into four economic groups, not just the US.

Agreed. I don't think there are any meaningful conclusions that can be drawn from that graph as it is.

Clearly we should lower the retirement age so poor people can benefit more equally with rich people.

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. The correlation between poverty, increased smoking rates, and longevity probably explains the entire difference.

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.

It would be interesting to see if this effect held true for other countries too, or if it's prevalent in the US alone.

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