American health and longevity metrics: GOP vs Dems

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-in-republican-counties-have-higher-death-rates-than-those-in-democratic-counties/

Excerpt: (Site has graphs and further links, etc.)

People in Republican Counties Have Higher Death Rates Than Those in Democratic Counties

A growing mortality gap between Republican and Democratic areas may largely stem from policy choices

By Lydia Denworth on July 18, 2022

. . .

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the link between politics and health became glaringly obvious. Democrat-leaning “blue” states were more likely to enact mask requirements and vaccine and social distancing mandates. Republican-leaning “red” states were much more resistant to health measures. The consequences of those differences emerged by the end of 2020, when rates of hospitalization and death from COVID rose in conservative counties and dropped in liberal ones. That divergence continued through 2021, when vaccines became widely available. And although the highly transmissible Omicron variant narrowed the gap in infection rates, hospitalization and death rates, which are dramatically reduced by vaccines, remain higher in Republican-leaning parts of the country.

But COVID is only the latest chapter in the story of politics and health. “COVID has really magnified what had already been brewing in American society, which was that, based on where you lived, your risk of death was much different,” says Haider J. Warraich, a physician and researcher at the VA Boston Healthcare System and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

In a study published in June in The BMJ, Warraich and his colleagues showed that over the two decades prior to the pandemic, there was a growing gap in mortality rates for residents of Republican and Democratic counties across the U.S. In 2001, the study’s starting point, the risk of death among red and blue counties (as defined by the results of presidential elections) was similar. Overall, the U.S. mortality rate has decreased in the nearly two decades since then (albeit not as much as in most other high-income countries). But the improvement for those living in Republican counties by 2019 was half that of those in Democratic counties—11 percent lower versus 22 percent lower.

Duckduckgo searches provide a ton of similar articles/studies.

Of course, I think it’s also self-evident that if we replaced capitalism with true economic democracy, the leap in living standards would dwarf even the best results from Europe at the moment. This is also the only way to save the planet for future generations and most current life forms.

But while we’re in the midst of Late Capitalism’s final thrashings, it’s also self-evident that conservative (and further right) policies are making a bad situation markedly worse, and people are dying as a result. That, too, is beyond logical to me. The ascendant wing of political conservatism in America and much of the world is a new iteration of minarchism, with a toxic dose of fascism and Ayn Rand to boot. All with the blessing of too much of the billionaire class. In an increasingly interconnected and interdependent world, any political movement that preaches a radical reduction in public/social policy and the social safety net is an existential danger for humankind, and this movement is far more radically opposed to environmentalism than even its anti-green conservative forebears.

To make a long story short, I think leftists should put our intellectual and activist passion into the (metaphorical/rhetorical/public policy) war against the right, while pushing the center leftward. I think it’s a huge mistake to focus most of our energy on attacking the Dems, for instance, as seems to be the case on outlets like Twitter. By all means, hold their feet to the fire too. But common sense dictates that we work hardest against what threatens us most, and most immediately. That’s the right. That’s conservatism, writ large and small.