US slips to 49th in life expectancy

[a completely inoffensive name]

According to the peer reviewed academic journal Health Affairs, a study by Columbia professors, Peter A. Muennig and Sherry A. Glied has examined proposed reasons why since 1999, the US has slipped from 24th in life expectancy to 49th.

Link to article:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/s...ectancy-study/

Link to publication/study (PDF):
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi...010.0073v1.pdf

Personally, I'm getting kind of tired of having to see the facts of how far down the drain we are going while having my ears bombarded by screams of Tea Partiers saying that our health care is still the best because it isn't "socialist".