'Has our failure to provide universal health care access contributed to many unnecessary deaths? Yes... Is it finally time to build an effective public health system? Yes.'
In what experts said is an indictment of the U.S. healthcare system and persistent economic and racial inequality, federal health researchers on Wednesdayshowing the U.S. saw the largest decline in life expectancy in nearly a century during the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic, with Americans now expected to live nearly three fewer years than they were in 2019.
"There is no doubt Covid was a contributor to the increase in mortality during the last couple of years, but it didn't start these problems—it made everything that much worse," Dr. Stephen Woolf, director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University,Chronic inequality helped drive an especially sharp decline in life expectancy among Indigenous people.
Among both Black and white Americans, average life expectancy is now the lowest it's been since 1995.
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