(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . ICYMI, Paul Krugman on Understanding the Red State Death Trip [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-04 "America is experiencing the greatest gap in life expectancy across regions in the last 40 years." - Jeremy Ney. Paul Krugman commented the other day about something that needs more attention. Life expectancy in the US is falling behind other developed countries, and it’s worse in red states. It starts with some ‘good’ news. Last Friday the Medicare trustees released their latest report on the system’s finances, and it contained some unexpected good news: Expenditures are running below projections, and the Hospital Insurance Trust Fund won’t be exhausted as soon as previously predicted. But one important reason for this financial improvement was grisly: Covid killed a substantial number of Medicare beneficiaries. And the victims were disproportionately seniors already suffering from severe — and expensive — health problems. “As a result, the surviving population had spending that was lower than average.” emphasis added A cynical person might wonder if this wasn't the real reason behind Republican opposition to anti-Covid measures. But I anticipate. Also: Now, Covid killed a lot of people around the world, so wasn’t this just an act of God? Not exactly. You see, America experienced a bigger decline in life expectancy when Covid struck than any other wealthy country. Furthermore, while life expectancy recovered in many countries in 2021, here it continued to fall. And America’s dismal Covid performance was part of a larger story. I don’t know how many Americans are aware that over the past four decades, our life expectancy has been lagging ever further that of other advanced nations — even nations whose economic performance has been poor by conventional measures. Italy, for example, has experienced a generation of economic stagnation, with basically no growth in real G.D.P. per capita since 2000, compared with a 29 percent rise here. Yet Italians can expect to live about five years longer than Americans, a gap that has widened even as the Italian economy flounders. The link to Krugman’s commentary should allow passage through The NY Times paywall, so I suggest reading the whole thing. One important clue is that the problem of premature death isn’t evenly distributed across the country. Life expectancy is hugely unequal across U.S. regions, with major coastal cities not looking much worse than Europe but the South and the eastern heartland doing far worse. The bottom line is this: If you live in a state under Republican governance, you can expect to have more health problems and less help to deal with them. You will be living under the control of people who refuse to address public health needs and support deregulation that makes environmental problems — and the health issues that go with them — worse. You will be in the hands of people who are politicizing healthcare on both ideological and religious grounds. Your workplaces will be less safe. You’ll also be at higher risk of gun-related incidents. The next pandemic is likely to be deadlier in red states. But as long as it all “owns the libs” it’s mission accomplished, right? Besides, what really matters are trans people and the drag queen threat. Krugman’s conclusion is understated if anything: All of this seems relevant to our current era of culture war, with many Republican politicians praising rural and red-state values while denigrating those of coastal elites. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, for example, claims that although he grew up around Tampa Bay, he’s culturally a product of western Pennsylvania and northeastern Ohio. It’s worth noting, then, that the culture these politicians want all of America to emulate seems to have a problem with one of society’s most important functions: keeping people from dying early. One question. It seems strange that, if there’s any political party that is opposed to the Republican death trip, they don’t talk about this more. Maybe because when they try to, stuff like this happens... [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/story/2023/4/4/2162058/-ICYMI-Paul-Krugman-on-Understanding-the-Red-State-Death-Trip Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/