In short, are people in red states sick because of the Republican policies that are created by the politicians they vote for or is the fact they're sick make them vote for politicians who create those policies? A new report from the United Health Foundation ranked every state in the union, as it has been doing for almost 3 decades. Here's the ranking )along with what percentage of the vote Trump won in each state):
1- Hawaii- 30.03%2- Massachusetts- 32.81%3- Connecticut- 40.93%4- Vermont- 30.27%5- Utah- 45.54%6- New Hampshire- 46.61%7- Minnesota- 44.92%8- Colorado- 43.25%9- Washington- 36.83%10- New York- 36.52%11- New Jersey- 41.00%12- California- 31.62%%13- North Dakota- 62.96%14- Rhode Island- 38.90%15- Nebraska- 58.75%16- Idaho- 59.25%17- Maine- 44.87%18- Iowa- 51.15%19- Maryland- 33.91%20- Virginia- 44.41%21- Montana- 56.17%22- Oregon- 39.09%23- Wisconsin- 47.22%24- Wyoming- 67.40%25- South Dakota- 61.53%26- Illinois- 38.76%27- Kansas- 56.65%28- Pennsylvania- 48.18%29- Florida- 49.02%30- Arizona- 48.67%31- Delaware- 41.72%32- Alaska- 51.28%33- North Carolina- 49.83%34- Michigan- 47.50%35- New Mexico- 40.04%36- Nevada- 45.50%37- Texas- 52.23%38- Missouri- 56.77%39- Georgia- 50.77%40- Ohio- 51.69%41- Indiana- 56.82%42- Tennessee- 60.72%43- South Carolina- 54.94%44- West Virginia- 68.50%45- Kentucky- 62.52%46- Arkansas- 60.57%47- Oklahoma- 65.32%48- Alabama- 62.8%49- Mississippi- 57.94%50- Louisiana- 58.09%
The creators of the survey explained that to create the rankings, the report takes into account 35 health factors which fall into categories-- "the behaviors that we are choosing in our lifestyle; the community and environment where we live; the public policy that happens at a state level; and the clinical care that we receive when we go to the doctor and the hospital ultimately influence the outcomes around our health"-- and examines them by state.
"Starting with the thing that concerned us the most, obesity has hit an all-time high. The obesity rate in America for the adult population, for the first time in the history of producing this report, is up 5% in the past year. It hit 31.3% for 2018," Randall said.In other words, nearly one in three US adults is obese.Obesity rates also appeared to be high in many of the states ranked as least healthy. For instance, the prevalence of obesity in West Virginia is 38.1%, nearly double the prevalence in Colorado, where it is 22.6%, according to the report."Another thing that concerns us that we found in this report was that premature death increased 3% in the past year. That means years of life lost before people are reaching the age of 75," Randall said."That often has correlation with a number of factors-- things like our lifestyle choices, living with more chronic diseases," she said. "We also know that the suicide rate has increased as well, and that would contribute to the increase in premature death rate, along with other causes."The report measured the suicide rate as the number of deaths due to intentional self-harm per 100,000 deaths recorded on death certificates, and the data showed that America's suicide rate has increased 16% since 2012...."If you think about the things that cause premature death-- heart disease, perinatal deaths, tobacco-related diseases-- in many ways, those are spurred by social determinants," Benjamin said.For instance, "Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana continue to be at the bottom, and that kind of carries up to the Arkansas and Tennessee region. When you look at some of the challenges they have, it's still around tobacco use and poverty and, to some degree, physical inactivity," he said. "Those are the things that we know result in fundamentally poor health outcomes. What we would like to see is all states improving."
Mississippi is only the second least healthy state and this morning we learned from Paul Demko at Politico that Gov. Bryant (R) wants to give his long-suffering, sickly people the benefits of ObamaCare by expanding Medicare. "The behind-the-scenes move", wrote Demko, "comes as a surprisingly viable Democratic gubernatorial candidate is planning to make Medicaid expansion a central issue in the 2019 election. But in an even more unlikely scenario, Republicans could beat him to it and undercut a key Democratic message. Until now, Medicaid expansion has largely been ignored in the Republican-dominated state, one of the sickest and the poorest in the country. Even Mississippi Democrats have largely dismissed it as politically unviable since a 2012 Supreme Court decision made the program optional for states."Half dozen patriotic states all got much healthier
