Life Expectancy

The “Poverty Belt” And The Republican Party

America has a “Poverty Belt”, recently outlined by the Centers for Disease Control, states that have higher rates of poverty (30 percent or more), and substantially lower life expectancy.

These states are, not surprisingly, the Confederate South of the Civil War years except for Virginia and Florida; along with Kentucky and Missouri, two states of the “Border” South which had slavery, but stayed loyal to the Union during the Civil War; and West Virginia and Oklahoma–therefore, a total of 13 states!

These 13 states have not only extreme poverty and lower life expectancy rates, but also high levels of poor education, higher crime rates, poor nutrition, higher unemployment, inadequate food and housing, and less access to quality health care.

And these states with the highest poverty percentages are dominated by the Republican Party, and won all of their electoral votes in 2012, and most have Republican state legislatures and Republican Governors, and elect mostly Republicans to the House of Representatives and US Senate.

Do Republicans, by their words and actions, give a damn about these horrific conditions in their states?

The answer, clearly, is NO, and no one can claim otherwise, as the reality on the ground proves this sad fact!

The question is WHY the voters of these 13 states constantly vote to send, to the state capitals and Washington, DC, individuals who show a callousness to their plight, and set out to make certain that conditions can never improve! What is in the psyche of these voters that they do not get the message that the GOP is not concerned about them, and instead works to limit the freedom and justice of African Americans, Latinos and Hispanics, women, the elderly, and the young?

And, instead of wishing to make the lives of working class or poor whites better, the intention instead is to promote ignorance and fear among them to keep power, and do nothing to improve the lot in life of the citizenry of their states!

What could be more despicable and outrageous than that reality?

American “Exceptionalism”: Life Expectancy In America Decreasing In Many Sections, And What It Says About America

A new study by the Institute For Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington demonstrates that life expectancy in America varies widely by region, and is decreasing in some locations in the country.

Eighty percent of American counties fell behind in standing as against the average of the ten nations with the best life expectancies in the world.

The US is only 36th in life expectancy overall, with an average of 78.3 years, with overall increase in expectancy by about two years for men to 75.6 in 2007, and one year increase in expectancy for women to 80.8 in the same year.

But areas of life expectancy that are declining or lower than the average are most common in West Virginia, through the Southern Appalachian Mountains, and west through the Deep South into North Texas.

The oddity is that certain states have areas of growth in life expectancy in sections near others that are in decline, as in Virginia, Colorado, Minnesota, Utah, California, Washington State, and Florida.

Factors involved in differences in life expectancy seem to be obesity and smoking, along with poorly controlled blood pressure and a lack of primary care physicians.

The state, overall, with the worst life expectancy is Mississippi, not all that surprising, whether white or African American population. Mississippi falls behind such countries as Honduras, El Salvador, Peru, Brazil, Latvia, and the Philippines.

This study makes it clear that we have a long way to go as a nation to improve the health care of our citizens, particularly those who are poor, whether white or minority background. But instead, the emphasis is on cutting back on health care, because of the claim that America is “exceptional”, and that we have the best health care system in the world, a totally inaccurate statement, as that is only true for those who are rich and fortunate, not for wide swaths of American society!