By Jack Uldrich
An Opinion/Question Piece
It was reported last week that US life expectancy
topped 78 years as a variety of diseases – including heart
disease, diabetes and flu – decreased this past year. 
More interestingly, life expectancy – which has been increasing
about two or three months from year to year – jumped an impressive
four months this year. This caused one demographer to note that the
increase was “an unusually rapid improvement.”
It was “an usually rapid improvement,” but I’d like to argue
that such rapid improvements will become “usual” for the
foreseeable future. If one tracks the amazing rate of progress in
biotechnology, genomics, stem cell research and nanotechnology; it
is hard – barring a devastating calamity that kills thousands or
millions of people – to envision how life expectancy will do
anything but continue to increase at an accelerating rate.
It seems only prudent, therefore, that we should at least begin
preparing for life expectancies in the neighborhood of 100 within
the next few decades.
Given the existing pressure on such social programs as Social
Security and Medicare, I believe one implication of this “unusually
rapid improvement” is that these systems will need to be radically
overhauled in order to survive this new demographic reality.
I’d be interested in hearing from other Future Bloggers and
readers what you think should be done to modify these systems or
whether you think that they will simply collapse under their own
weight?
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