LIVE LONG AND PROSPER, DEPNDING ON WHO YOU ARE. I talk a lot about health care and economic inequality, but too rarely about health inequality. But a new study out today sheds some light on this issue: If you subdivide various demographics, you find life expectancies differ by decades, with some American groups exhibiting outcomes more typical of developing nations. Indeed, if you compare Asian women with urban black men, you see a life expectancy difference of 21 years. That's huge. So much as I'd like to blame this on a lack of insurance and care disparities, actual medical coverage probably accounts for only a small portion of the inequality. Lifestyle factors -- notably stress, obesity, diet, smoking, exercise, etc. -- were the primary determinants. Some of it, like diet and stress, connects heavily to economic inequality, some is cultural. But, when taken together, the difference is shaving decades off the life of massive swaths of America. The article also ranks the states by life expectancy. Number one is Hawaii. Number 51 -- the shortest life expectancy -- is Washington, D.C. Yikes.
--Ezra Klein
