EDITORIAL: Lessons on healthcare from news of racism, inequality and budget cuts

In the wake of the news:

Roseanne Barr loses show after racist tweet.

She should be thankful she didn’t lose a decade off her life expectancy.

Her penance should include reading The Death Gap: How Inequality Kills by Dr. David Ansell, the senior vice president for community health equity at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. A self-described social epidemiologist, Ansell catalogs how life expectancy in the all-black, impoverished Lawndale neighborhood is just 72, a full 13 years below that in the nearby Loop, where gleaming high-rises are filled with empty nesters, wealthy business executives and well-to-do young families.