Fun Fact!

[unblock]

3. Hard to say, really, because they're not a random sample of 65 year olds.

According the social security administration actuarial tables, there's a 1.7897% chance of a 65 year old dying within 1 year. The percentage goes up with age, of course. The oldest Republican member is 87 years old. The average 87 year old has a 12.4494% chance of dying within 1 year.

The odds of 50 random people 65-year olds all surviving the next 12 months would be (100% - 1.7897%) ^ 50, which works out to be about 38.4%. That about a 61.6% chance of at least one dying.

Problem is, the 50 Republican members of Congress aren't random people. Aside from having access to better healthcare, they're healthy enough to be sitting members of Congress. Some of the 1.7897% 65-year olds statistically destined to die within a year are people who start off the year already too ill to run for Congress.

So the pool of sitting Republican congresspeople are healthier than then an average pool of people the same ages, and they have better resources with which to stay alive. On the other, they may also face higher risk, due to exposure to so many people (infectious disease risk), travel risk, or assassination risk.

In practice, I suspect the likelihood of one of them dying is much lower than. 61.6%. It certainly could happen, but more likely not to, imho.