Your life expectancy ticked back up. Did you feel it?

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes a mix of guest commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

Some good news as 2024 nears the end: Life expectancy in the U.S. last year made an unusually sharp increase as deaths from most major causes declined, according to the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. Americans can expect more longevity gains in the future — as long as Washington doesn’t introduce harmful policies.

Life expectancy in 2023 rose 0.9 years to 78.4 while the overall mortality rate adjusted for age declined 6%. Death rates among all age groups fell, and more sharply for middle-aged Americans and seniors. A typical 65-year-old can expect to live another 19.5 years, up from 18.9 years in 2022.

The large rebound in a single year owes largely to a decline in COVID-19 deaths as the pandemic receded into the past. COVID deaths last year were roughly the same as those from the flu during a bad flu season. Death rates from cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and unintentional injuries (e.g., drug overdoses) also declined.

It’s true that U.S. life expectancy is still lower, and deaths from most causes somewhat higher, than before the pandemic, when it reached an overall average of 78.8 years. But that’s because of an increase in chronic illnesses, which may have been exacerbated by the pandemic lockdowns. Forced to stay home, many Americans ate and drank more and used more drugs.

The Biden administration claimed credit for the lifespan increase because drug overdoses declined slightly in 2023. Perhaps political attention to the fentanyl scourge is making a difference. But overdoses were still 50% higher last year than in 2019. The truth is that the administration’s “harm reduction” policies — e.g., distributing sterile needles and the opioid-overdose medicine naloxone to addicts — have failed to reduce addiction.

A common lament on the political left and right is that the U.S. has a lower life expectancy despite spending more on health care than most developed countries. But America also has more chronic disease and drug addiction, which aren’t from failings in private health care. Americans have access to more treatments than any country in the world.

This is why U.S. cancer survival rates are higher than in most developed countries and continue to improve. Personalized cancer vaccines and CAR T-cell therapies have shown potential to treat deadly cancers like pancreatic and glioblastoma. GLP-1 medicines like Ozempic could help extend lifespans by reducing obesity, diabetes and even drug addictions.

The policy risk is that government drug price controls will discourage innovation. Expanding government control over health care isn’t the way to make Americans healthier.