Thank you for the graph.

A lot of people I come across day to day look very unhealthy
and eat a lot of junk and high carb food, a lot of it processed.

Many also seem to be under a lot of stress.

That's probably because of oppressive work environments
and long hours.

this. And it seems like in our society we pay lip service to stress and anxiety, but it takes a backseat to factors that have pharmaceutical solutions.

It is difficult, in a country that measures its success in "growth", to begin that difficult conversation about how working conditions contribute to poor health and diminished longevity.

like weight gain and other issues.

nutraceuticals, peptides, racetams and all that other stuff? I bet it is a gargantuan sum just spent on non-professional alternative health solutions.

snip
Still another whistleblower lawsuit filed in 2020 by a nurse practitioner UnitedHealth had stationed at a nursing home details what happened after insurer and provider successfully coaxed a new patient into trading in his Medicare card for enrollment in a UnitedHealth MA plan. After the patient’s loved ones have been pressured into signing a DNR, the full force of the insurance giant’s extensive private equity alliances and robotic patient care algorithms are deployed to ensure that patient is never again admitted to the hospital, even if he or she is obviously suffering a stroke or similar life-threatening condition.

In other words, one riposte to the boomlet of center-left wonks trying to set up an adversarial relationship between cost-constraining insurers and profligate providers, and claiming that providers are primarily responsible for cost inflation, is that the two sides are working in concert, sometimes literally so (UnitedHealth is the largest employer of doctors in America) and more often through kickbacks and glad hands and winks and nods.

THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT DECLINED TO INTERVENE in any of these cases, possibly because the last time the agency did get involved in a UnitedHealth whistleblower case, over a 2011 lawsuit filed by a top executive named Benjamin Poehling, a California judge dismissed major portions of the case, citing a 2016 Supreme Court ruling that arguably raises the threshold for proving Medicare fraud to permanently unattainable heights. The Justice Department’s annual haul from health care fraud whistleblower settlements and enforcement efforts, the vast majority from out-of-court settlements involving no substantive sanctions or admission of guilt or any of the other sorts of consequences that might constitute a plausible deterrence, shrank to $1.8 billion last year, down from $2.5 billion in 2018, even as the number of new cases filed each week hit a new record.
https://prospect.org/health/2024-12-13-final-boss-of-our-medical-misery/

Most of our peer countries are in Europe, and people there shop more local markets that have fresher food, walk more, and have less worry about healthcare because it is guaranteed. As just one food example, I usually buy a three-pack of romaine lettuce at the grocery, and look for a small sticker giving the date the lettuce was harvested. You might be surprised to learn that the lettuce is already two or more weeks old before you even buy it and store it at home for a week or so. Lettuce and other foods that old are simply not as nutritious as those freshly harvested. In winter, it’s often better to use frozen vegetables because they are frozen soon after harvesting.

And then of course there’s the excess amount of salt and sugar in most prepared foods.

If you only take the top 50 percent of income earners in the US, they would actually have a slightly higher life expectancy than the rest of the world. America’s FAILURE to pay a living wage for all workers drags down the overall life expectancy here.

...and MAGAville, I guess.