SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
London, United Kingdom - A decade of "austerity" - a political programme of slashing public spending on services in a bid to reduce government budget deficits - has seen significant effects on the health and wellbeing of Britons, new research has reported.
Life expectancy has stalled and mortality rates have increased, especially for the poorest in the United Kingdom, according to a report commissioned by the Institute of Health Equity.
The report, Health Equity in England: The Marmot Review Ten Years On, was launched on Tuesday and sees Sir Michael Marmot, a former president of the World Medical Association, updating his influential 2010 report, having been asked by the then-Labour government to study the question: "Is inequality making us sick?"
Marmot's latest research analysed a wealth of data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and Public Health England to explore what has happened since his last landmark report. And the answer can only be summarised as: Not only is inequality making us sick but it is killing us quicker.
In the past decade - for the first time in 120 years of increasing life expectancy in England - life expectancy has stalled for those people living in the UK's 10 percent most deprived areas, particularly in the northeast.
Among women from the most deprived areas - especially British women of Bangladeshi and Pakistani origin - life expectancy fell between 2010-2012 and again between 2016-2018.
Mortality rates have meanwhile increased for people aged between 45 and 49 - the generation that grew up under former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's administrations. The report details how life expectancy follows the social gradient - the more deprived the area, the shorter the life expectancy.
Marmot's data analysis finds that, as the social gradient has become steeper, so inequalities in life expectancy have also increased.
Austerity has adversely affected the social determinants that impact on health in the short, medium and long term. Austerity will cast a long shadow over the lives of the children born and growing up under its effects
:- Professor Sir Michael Marmot
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 27 2020, @04:42PM (10 children)
What does it mean to hoard it? Are they taking huge percentages of farm harvests and piling them up in giant silos? What are they doing with it that you believe to be bad?
(Score: 5, Informative) by tangomargarine on Thursday February 27 2020, @04:59PM (4 children)
Not paying taxes to even out the deficit spending.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday February 27 2020, @08:59PM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday February 28 2020, @04:05PM (2 children)
Well sure, it's a multi-part approach--you can't keep increasing the amount you spend boundlessly, either. The Republicans do sometimes actually do as they claim they like to and cut spending, but often in the most moronic areas possible, like education and road maintenance.
It's like how computers get more powerful every year, but software gets more bloated and complicated to fill up the extra hardware. (go ask Troutman [tomrobertshaw.net])
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 29 2020, @02:02AM (1 child)
How come this acknowledgment never comes up until there's criticism of "we need more revenue"?
So what's the justification that we should increase tax revenue when we're not only not spending it well, but getting worse every time we actually do increase tax revenue?
My take is that we already are spending too much and building up huge liabilities in the process. It's not just the debt. It's also the promises made. Here, this study purports to show that more social programs and the like means a healthier population. But it's only considering one side of the equation. The resources that go into backing those promises come from somewhere be it something concrete like someone's wealth and ability to contribute to society (such as employing people or making useful things), or something nebulous like confidence in the government and economy.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday March 02 2020, @04:38PM
It's one of those things I don't generally think to bring up because it's so bleeding obvious.
Or at least, it *should* be. At the scale of the federal government, apparently logic ceases to apply, e.g. "too big to fail."
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 27 2020, @06:36PM (4 children)
You did read the part about a hundred lifetimes?
Such great resources should not be quite so concentrated into so few hands.
I suppose you'll disagree. Maybe one person should be able to own the entire planet? Or at least the USA?
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by canopic jug on Thursday February 27 2020, @07:06PM (3 children)
No matter how wealthy, there's only so much beer you can drink in a day. Beyond that the money goes to waste.
You did read the part about a hundred lifetimes?
Even the current pope noticed the dual problems of obscene wealth and cultivation of poverty [billmoyers.com]. He mentioned it explictly [npr.org] a few years ago:
Notice list item #5 and #6 in particular, but #4 is also relevant if one uses the older, traditional definition of justice like he did in his encyclical.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 27 2020, @08:18PM (2 children)
Interesting.
However you will never convince some people that corporations or the obscenely wealthy should pay their fair share.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday February 27 2020, @09:31PM (1 child)
I'm convinced. Corps and rich people should pay equivalent or greater than the working class. Every time that conversation gets started, the rightists pipe up with, "Well they don't have income!"
If they are making money, they have income. That should be taxed. Only corruption in congress can create a false fact like, "Well rich people don't have income!"
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 27 2020, @09:45PM
Corruption, rather than differences in public policy ideas, is the cause of a LOT of our nation's problems.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.