The American Trade-Off: Guns And Cars For A Much Shorter Lifespan
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.4 • 25.7K Ratings
🗓️ 29 March 2023
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, national political correspondent Mara Liasson, and health correspondent Selena Simmons-Duffin.
The podcast is produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. It is edited by Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Research and fact-checking by Devin Speak.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, all. I'm Erin and I'm Brenna and we're on vacation in Washington DC. Oh, no. Earlier tonight |
| 0:07.5 | we got to take a tour of the West Wing and I got to sit in the NPR chair of the White House Press |
| 0:13.1 | Briefing Room. This podcast was recorded at 11.13 a.m. on Wednesday, March 29th. Things may have |
| 0:20.6 | changed by the time you hear this, but we'll still be writing the high of seeing the Oval Office. |
| 0:26.1 | Okay, here's the show. I hope that they got to see some cherry blossoms where we just got past |
| 0:39.0 | peak bloom. It's a lovely time to be in town. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Susan |
| 0:44.0 | Davis. I cover politics. I'm Mara Liason, National Political Correspondent and friend of the podcast |
| 0:49.5 | Selena Simmons-defin who covers Health for NPR joins us today. Hi, Selena. Hi, Sue. Hi, Mara. |
| 0:54.8 | Hi there. Selena, there is a string of new data out that collectively adds up to this. Americans |
| 1:01.2 | across all demographic groups are dying at younger ages than their counterparts in wealthy nations |
| 1:07.2 | around the world. How significant is this divide between U.S. and other comparable countries? |
| 1:14.2 | Well, if you look at the chart, Americans have a life expectancy of 76 years and comparable |
| 1:21.6 | country is about 82. That might not sound like that much. I think sometimes when people hear |
| 1:27.8 | those numbers, they're like, what am I going to do in my late 70s? It's really significant. I mean, |
| 1:34.8 | comparable countries haven't been 76 years for decades. A lot of the recent drop off in life |
| 1:42.1 | expectancy, it's dropped two years just because of the coronavirus pandemic. There have been |
| 1:48.7 | unbelievable numbers of deaths in this country. The pandemic was global. The pandemic did have an |
| 1:54.7 | effect in other countries, of course, but the drop just hasn't been anywhere in the same ballpark |
| 2:00.8 | and other countries. Many of them rebounded in 2021 when vaccines were available and the U.S. |
| 2:06.3 | did not. It dropped again. So it is a significant gap. I think population researchers, |
| 2:13.5 | demographers who've been working on this for their careers are extremely alarmed and concerned, |
| 2:19.4 | but also not surprised, I would say, because the U.S. has been lagging behind pure countries |
... |
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