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Why Is Life Expectancy For Women Going Down In America? - by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at BlogHer)

A new study has found that the life expectancy for women in the United States is on the decline. But don’t worry, this is not something that will affect ALL women in our country - just the poor women.

Even more troubling, is that the study doesn’t include any statistics after 1999. What that means is, the Bush years have not been figured into these statistics. I can only imagine how the last eight years of the Bush administration have impacted the reality of these numbers.

It seems like it wasn’t that long ago, that I heard how the US life expectancy had slipped in ranking from 11th to 42nd, behind most European countries.

John Edwards was absolutely right when he talked about two Americas. Try to picture America on one side, and a third-world country on the other. Now picture that third-world country within the United States. Thanks to a failing economy and a serious health care crisis, that is exactly what we face today. It’s really not surprising at all. Very sad, but not surprising.


From The New York Times…

Life expectancy has long been growing steadily for most Americans. But it has not for a significant minority, according to a new study, which finds a growing disparity in mortality depending on race, income and geography.

The study, published Monday in the online journal PLoS, analyzed life expectancy in all 3,141 counties in the United States from 1961 to 1999, the latest year for which complete data have been released by the National Center for Health Statistics. Although life span has generally increased since 1961, the authors reported, it began to level off or even decline in the 1980s for 4 percent of men and 19 percent of women.

“It’s very troubling that there are parts of the wealthiest country in the world, with the highest health spending in the world, where health is getting worse,” said Majid Ezzati, the lead author and an associate professor of international health at Harvard. It is a phenomenon, he added, “unheard of in any other developed country.”

Listen to an interview on NPR…

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Is This Post About Hillary Clinton, Women’s Health, Ellen DeGeneres, or Breast Cancer? All of the above? - by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at BlogHer)

Hillary Clinton was a guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Monday. I didn’t actually see it, but I did see several reports of it on the cable news channels. The media was very thorough and quick to compare Clinton’s mock bowling with Ellen, to Obama’s gutter ball of last week. [Personally, up until that moment I had been undecided, but after seeing the riveting side by side bowling comparison, I’m now totally committed to one candidate.]

Anyway, one station was even observant enough to report on the differences between Barack’s “Ellen Show” strategy and Hillary’s…It seems Hillary didn’t do a jig with Ellen, but Barack did. So thanks to Hillary’s appearance on Ellen yesterday, the evening news programs had a lot of great election news to cover. The level of journalistic integrity on this important election coverage was nonexistent. I even continued to see the same coverage several times today, so I could only assume nothing politically relevant happened during Hillary’s appearance on Ellen. However, it wouldn’t actually be safe to assume that.

To my surprise I happened upon this blog post from Shakesville: Hillary and Ellen…

Hillary Clinton was a guest on Ellen yesterday, and, although I haven’t generally been in the habit of posting talk show appearances of the various candidates, I watch all of them (even John McCain—grumble), and I thought this one was worth posting because the two Dem candidates’ positions on gay rights have been the subject of much debate around here recently, and Hillary spoke to Ellen about gay rights and told a very personal story about people who influenced her support of equality and fairness (love that framing!). She also spoke about an objective that I thought would be of interest to a lot of Shakers: Making breast cancer curable in the next decade.

Hillary said what? She wants to make breast cancer curable? That seems like a pretty big deal, but all I had heard was that she couldn’t hit more than one plastic pin down with a plastic ball.

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Stop Talking About Race and Gender — by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at Care2 Election and The Political Voices of Women)

O.k. - I’m bored with Clinton and Obama going on and on about the “race/gender” non-issue. Voters are going to vote on the actual issues (the economy, the war, healthcare, taxes, etc)…I am sick of hearing them attack each other over twisted words meant to sway voters with race and gender tactics. Just stop it! You too, Main Stream Media! Stop making this an issue, when it is not the least bit important to how these candidates will handle “actual” issues important to the American people. You are wasting critical time. Voters need to hear these candidates talk about what they will do to “heal” our country, not continue to add to the “fracturing” of it. So please…Just Stop It!

READ FULL POST AT THE CARE2 ELECTION BLOG

Also See:

Women To Play A Key Role In 2008 Presidential Election

Why I’m Still An Undecided Voter

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Women Will Play A Key Role In 2008 Election — by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at The Care2 Election Blog and The Political Voices of Women)

The presidential campaign has taken an interesting turn in the last few days. It’s finally become apparent to the media, the pundits, and the candidates, what has been obvious to women all along…Women hold the key to the White House, ignore them and you shall be locked out.

How important will the “women’s vote” be in the 2008 presidential election? The answer - It’s going to be more important than anyone can even begin to imagine. If that fact hadn’t been abundantly clear before now, it certainly should be after Iowa and New Hampshire. Obama won in Iowa with the majority of women voting for him there, and Clinton won in New Hampshire with the majority of women voting for her there. When all is said and done, the next President of the United States will be coronated not by the media, but by the women.

In 2004, 8.8 million more women voted than men, that number is going to be even greater in 2008.

So, do your homework candidates. This election is not about race, gender, or tears…It’s about the issues, especially the issues that are important to women voters. You will need a message that resonates with all women voters…all colors, ages, income levels, married, single, soccer moms, and single moms. Don’t feel bad men, women ultimately want what’s best for the country, so that includes you too. And NEWS FLASH…Just “pandering” to the women is not going to do the trick, we can actually see through that.

NOTE TO CANDIDATES: Now might be a good time to check in with Lisa Stone of BlogHer about the BlogHer’s Voter Manifesto. FYI…Women who blog not only vote, but they influence other voters. With that said, you may also want to check out The Political Voices of Women, where a list has been compiled of over 300 women blogging about politics and the election. And, don’t forget to check out our very own Care2 Groups, with millions of members, many of whom happen to be women.

So, what are some of the women of the blogosphere saying about the events of the last few days? Here is a little sampling…

READ FULL POST AT The Political Voices of Women

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It’s become a tradition for me to do a “video-recap” of the presidential debates. So, if you didn’t catch the debate (and who could blame you?), but you still want to know what went down….Just go over to Informed Voters and check out my video-recap.

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