"We are living longer, and we need to live better"
About this Quote
Longevity used to be the victory lap of modern medicine; Donna Shalala’s line is a reminder that it can also be a slow-motion policy failure. “We are living longer” lands like a statistical fact, almost celebratory, but it’s really the setup for an indictment: years added to life don’t automatically translate into life added to years. The pivot - “and we need to live better” - recasts aging as a collective design problem, not a private lifestyle choice.
Shalala, a public servant shaped by health and education governance, is speaking in the register of systems: Medicare budgets, preventive care, housing, community supports, workplace protections, and the everyday infrastructure that determines whether longer lives are spent in dignity or in managed decline. The intent isn’t inspirational; it’s mobilizing. She’s trying to move the conversation from biomedical triumphalism to quality-of-life accountability.
The subtext is also generational politics. Longer lifespans amplify inequality: affluent people buy comfort, time, and health; everyone else accumulates chronic conditions, caregiving burdens, and financial precarity. “Live better” quietly contains an argument about distribution - who gets pain-free years, who gets autonomy, who gets to age at home rather than in institutions.
It works because it’s deceptively simple. By framing “better” as a civic obligation, Shalala turns aging into a measure of national competence: not how long we can keep bodies alive, but how well we can organize society around the realities of longer lives.
Shalala, a public servant shaped by health and education governance, is speaking in the register of systems: Medicare budgets, preventive care, housing, community supports, workplace protections, and the everyday infrastructure that determines whether longer lives are spent in dignity or in managed decline. The intent isn’t inspirational; it’s mobilizing. She’s trying to move the conversation from biomedical triumphalism to quality-of-life accountability.
The subtext is also generational politics. Longer lifespans amplify inequality: affluent people buy comfort, time, and health; everyone else accumulates chronic conditions, caregiving burdens, and financial precarity. “Live better” quietly contains an argument about distribution - who gets pain-free years, who gets autonomy, who gets to age at home rather than in institutions.
It works because it’s deceptively simple. By framing “better” as a civic obligation, Shalala turns aging into a measure of national competence: not how long we can keep bodies alive, but how well we can organize society around the realities of longer lives.
Quote Details
| Topic | Aging |
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