For about 20 years, life expectancy has been crashing in the most Republican parts of the country, and their resistance to Obamacare is going to make their higher death rate even more dramatic.
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Thank you! Iād lost track of that site!
hmmā¦ here in GA, Iāve noticed some advertising about retirement communities leasing in TN, the draw being the milder climate coupled with no income tax. so that could factor into your idea?
Not only is this post inaccurate in identifying the āBible Beltā, but it also misidentifies these states as the ones that USE the most prescription drugs, even referring to them as the āmost medicatedā states.
This graph indicates drug prescriptions filledānot usedāfilled. West Virginia, for one, has a real problem with āprescription millsā, where doctors (or even security guards) print out prescriptions for pain meds for sale. These fraudulent prescriptions are written, and filled, in the state, but may (or may not) be used by state residents, and may well end up being trafficked in other states. There have been recent (as in this week) crackdowns and closings of several prescription mills in the state.
The graph cited gives no indication of prescription drug usage or abuse by state residents.
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There is of course the little issue of poverty, which if I have my American Politics right is highly prevalent in the red, low-life-expectancy, high-pill-popping Southern section of the US of A . There is an assumption that poverty & life expectancy are correlated, if you are also silly enough to campaign against universal healthcare than cheap pills will most likely be your only long term optionā¦
Then there is raceā¦as a factor in both life expectancy and poverty and probably also in medicating.
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I know this sort of thing is extremely hard to measure and that my own experience is purely anecdotal, but I live in Tennessee and have several prescriptions that I filled but stopped taking long before the bottle was empty.
I wonder if thereās something about these areas that causes doctors to write more scrips, which doesnāt necessarily mean greater drug abuse.
In fact, the swift decline to life expectancy in these areas is largely due to prescription drug overdose. Often this seems to be in a sort of grey area between accidental OD and suicide.
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The really striking thing is that life expectancy for blacks is stable, but itās plunging for whites, especially uneducated white women.
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Importing retirees would increase life expectancy, because they have screened out everyone that died in their 50ās. You can see that in long life expectancy of people in southern Florida.
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But then theyād actually have to live there.
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That additional info about prescription mills is useful and adds to the discussion.
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aw, cāmon!
I did really like it in Chicago the week I spent there. far more than NYC. but āthe Southā is not the homogenous rural stereotype everyone thinks it is. I lived in rural Michigan for a brief time, it sucked way worse than Nashville, Knoxville, Louisville, or Atlanta. Like, in rural MI, the local chapter of the Klan used to call us on the phone. because we were ān-word lovers.ā And Nashville, Louisville and Atlanta are cooler than Southfield (Detroit area suburb). Knoxville could go either way. Just speaking about the places I personally lived in (Louisville was a lot of visits.) Yāall really need to divorce yourselves form the Beverly Hillbillies stereotypes. rural is always backward, nationwide. If youāthe BoingBoing readerāwere to move to the south, itās not like youād go to Dudies Branch, KY; youāre gonna move to Charleston or something. Thereāll be accents but not everyone will have one, and some other regionalisms, but itās fine. great, even. unless youāre from a US region with a lot of French or Mexican influence, the food is unquestionably better here.
also, I went to Wrigley Field on an Easter Sunday and it was colder than a witches tit in a brass bra. no, thanks. itās supposed to be hot by Easter. Iāll stay in the civilized climes.
sorry for the wall of text. maybe you were just kidding but if you know me at all, you know I canāt let that shit slide.
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You mean the west? 
I might have been complaining about anti-southern stereotyping in the other thread, but I will say I hated the weather there (I was in Memphis). There were exactly two months one could be outside (April and October were amazing), and the rest of the time it was sweaty and mosquito infested or cold but without the charms of snow. I ended up spending most of my life there indoors.
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Oh, Iāll give you that! The militia groups, gangs, drugsā¦
But Iāve worked for too many decades in several different areas of the South, so Iāve experienced way too many times that if youāre not part of the small minority that considers themselves āthe normā, itās not a safe place to be.
Oh, I should probably also mention that what was specifically in my mind when responding to the idea of moving down to Florida was:
- bugs
- heat
- humidity
I wasnāt actually focused on bigotry at that particular moment!
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the blockquote you used didnāt say āFlorida,ā it said āthe South,ā hence my defensiveness. We do enjoy dogpiling on FL here, I include myself in that, I guess, just due to the bizarre news items. My one visit there was brief; the people were fine butā¦ different. Hard to explain. But the people in the news items do seem like extreme versions of a few of the folks I met down there.
The weather was a fluke cold-snap while I was there, though. kinda sucked, really.
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I think of the Bible Belt as those parts of the country where random strangers ask about your religion.
The weather sucking isnāt a fluke, unfortunately. We joke that there are only two seasons ā winter and construction ā but on the glass-half-full side, our non-winter season is filled with very joyful residents who milk the good weather for all itās worth. All summer long, there are festivals and other fabulous offerings in the parks every day and evening. We fit in a lot of fun during those months. And our spring and fall seasons are gorgeous.
One side effect of climate change is that our winters are getting (on average) milder, so there will be a tipping point in the future when people start realizing you can have all the advantages of Chicago and a lot less of the formerly-disadvantageous extreme weather.
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sorry, I was unclear: I meant when I visited Florida, they had a fluke cold snap and it sucked because I didnāt pack any long pants so I was cold the whole time.
It was cold when I visited Chi, and that did suck, but I expected it; there was no disappointment involved. But, uh, good post, though! Chicago was really a great combo of big-city hipness and amenities with that midwestern absence of pretension, salt-of-the-earth thing. is the govāt still full of corruption and graft? (no aspersionsāATL has itās share, believe meābut Chiās is the stuff of legend)
sorry for the threadjack, everyone. ć½( Ā“ć¼`)ć
Just remember: virtually every town and every state has frightening amount of corruption and graft. What Chicago and Illinois are known for is actually prosecuting the criminals.
Lots of posters on BB speak up for the south in general and Florida in particular ā heaven knows why 
ā but various northern communities need to be supported when maligned as well. Itās nice to have a purpose in life!
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