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U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

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Re: U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

#131

Post by namelessoracle »

windowsrookie wrote: post #66
jimt1234 wrote: post #37

Obesity. I grew up in a "deep red" area of the Midwest. It wasn't always like this, but it seems obesity is the norm now. And obesity has many health consequences. It's probably more cultural than political, though.

I live in the Midwest. If you drive past the suburbs, the only restaurants available are fast food burger, fried chicken and pizza chains, with a subway thrown in (I don't consider subway healthy). Obviously it's not profitable to own a healthy restaurant out there, but why? Is it a lack of healthy eating education? Is it a "harder" life and junk food is a reward? Or is it cost? If it's cost, healthy home cooked food…

"healthy home cooked food is as cheap or even cheaper than unhealthy fast food"

Is it? You can get a double cheeseburger, small fries and a large soda (the worst part arguably of the whole meal health wise) for 4 dollars at McDonalds. You can skip the fries, and get 2 double cheeseburgers for the same price. The McDonalds app will often give you a large fry for free for the 4 dollar purchase.

Whats the comparable food you can be making for 4 dollars at the grocery store?

Cooking only helps when you can get economy of scale going. And only when you can use up all the ingredients you can bought effectively. Also you need the energy to make the food, if you are getting up at 7am to get your kids to school, then pick them up at 6 (when after school ends) and get home at 630, and then need to cook for 30 minutes, then another 15 to get dishes and everything put away. Your looking at not even being "done" with "work" until 715pm when you started the day at 7am. Acting like the time to cook and clean is free is not productive.

Re: U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

#132

Post by lkxijlewlf »

Siddarth1977 wrote: post #130
lkxijlewlf wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in my 50s. Stop blaming the working class when the rich keep taking a larger portion of the pie. Just stop.

I'm not sure why you're attacking me with this random, unrelated statement. I didn't "blame the working class" in any way, and re-reading my comment I can't come up with any interpretation of my statement that could be read as such. Are you trying to suggest that the working class is the root cause of inflation, and that by me pointing out inflation it was an attack on that group? I genuinely can't figure out why you…

I guess I misunderstood your comment. I apologize for that.

Re: U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

#133

Post by TheCoelacanth »

mjevans wrote: post #106
tomjakubowski wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really true in my experience, unless you're talking about side salads at typical restaurants. At a "main salad" kind of place, you can do a lot better in terms of greens, nuts, dressing options. Look at the menus for chains like Sweetgreen or Simply Green

I haven't seen any of those near me, are they regional?

Not regional, but limited to a relatively small number of major metro areas[1]

[1] https://www.scrapehero.com/location-reports/Sweetgreen-USA/

Re: U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

#134

Post by TMWNN »

commandlinefan wrote: post #14
qgin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not about the victory or loss of either party. It’s saying there are two Americas developing simultaneously and people in each have different health outcomes. Are the parties causative? Or are they just the labels that we have to describe the two groups currently? We don’t know.

> Are the parties causative? Or is it the other way around? Commenters occasionally often point out the "red states" are the biggest recipients of welfare in spite of being the ones that vote most against it. To me, it seems that the most likely explanation for this is that the voters there see the negative effects of welfare and the ones who are voting for it are insulated most from the unintended consequences. It c…

>Commenters occasionally often point out the "red states" are the biggest recipients of welfare in spite of being the ones that vote most against it.

Usually framed as "blue states are paying for the red states' welfare". But this isn't true.

First, the state of California does not pay a cent to another state or to the federal government. It is residents of California that pay federal taxes, which in turn provide funding and services to states and individuals.

Second, the Rockefeller Institute (https://rockinst.org/issue-areas/fiscal-analysis/balance-of-...>) shows that, as of 2018 (the last time I checked this data; I see that 2019 is now available), the 10 states at the bottom of the per capita list—that is, the states that benefit from the most federal spending per person compared to how much each person pays in federal taxes—are

2016/2020 Hillary/Biden-voting states: VA, NM, MD, HI, 1/2 of ME

2016/2020 Trump-voting states: KY, AK, AL, WV, MS, 1/2 of ME

It's not so much "blue states" as per the above-mentioned claim, but taxpayers of four very wealthy Northeast states (the Tri-State area plus Massachusetts) that account for the vast bulk of citizens paying more than they receive from the federal government. After them come CO, NE, UT, and MN, of which half voted for Hillary/Biden and half for Trump. All other states, including CA, are net beneficiaries of the taxpayers in the top eight (and, again, really, it's the top four).

Re: U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

#135

Post by windowsrookie »

namelessoracle wrote: post #131
windowsrookie wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the Midwest. If you drive past the suburbs, the only restaurants available are fast food burger, fried chicken and pizza chains, with a subway thrown in (I don't consider subway healthy). Obviously it's not profitable to own a healthy restaurant out there, but why? Is it a lack of healthy eating education? Is it a "harder" life and junk food is a reward? Or is it cost? If it's cost, healthy home cooked food…

"healthy home cooked food is as cheap or even cheaper than unhealthy fast food" Is it? You can get a double cheeseburger, small fries and a large soda (the worst part arguably of the whole meal health wise) for 4 dollars at McDonalds. You can skip the fries, and get 2 double cheeseburgers for the same price. The McDonalds app will often give you a large fry for free for the 4 dollar purchase. Whats the comparable foo…

I'm not going to list a whole bunch of recipes, there are many websites that have cheap healthy meal plans.

But for example...

1lb ground 90/10 turkey $3.69 1 bag of frozen mixed veggies $1.99 1/2 of a 1lb bag of rice. $.60 2 tablespoons of oil. ~$.05 1 tablespoon of soy sauce ~$.10

Total: $6.43

Throw rice plus water in a pan for 30 minutes. Add turkey, veggies, rice, ~2TBS. of butter/oil, 1TBS. of soy sauce. Done. Healthy fried rice. High in protein, healthy carbs/fiber from the rice and veggies, and low in sugar.

Should feed at least 3 people, all cooked in one pan and only requires 5 minutes of prep work. For $6.43. That's less than your one $4 meal at Mcdonalds costs, and it's significantly healthier (it has actual vegetables!). If you're just one person, It can be saved for later and re-heated in the microwave in 1 minute.

Re: U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

#136

Post by foxyv »

dismantlethesun wrote: post #122
ricw wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a doctor, but I believe that has to do with vastly improved survival rates for heart attacks. Hospitals have just gotten much better about it, by knowing that they have to act fast and having procedures in place to ensure that happens. 20 years ago a heart attack had a very high chance of death, even if you’re close to a hospital. These days, you’re much less likely to die if you get to a hospital / medic in time…

Why would that make Democratic voting counties see improvement but not Republican voting counties?

There could be a bunch of reasons. Republicans tend to live in rural counties, republicans are less likely to trust doctors, republicans are further from hospitals, or democrats are more likely to afford healthcare and accept public assistance.

Or it could be completely irrelevant. Who knows? (Note: Looks like the article authors controlled for the distance from hospitals)

Re: U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

#137

Post by kcplate »

Siddarth1977 wrote: post #129
smt88 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Shouldn't the median republican voter have an higher income (and way higher capital) than the median democrat voter? It's not really this simple anymore. Americans are sorting into the party of college grads (Democrats) and the party of non-college-grads (Republicans). This doesn't translate as neatly to income as you might think, but it's definitely a factor. > they eat venison and a lot of homegrown vegetables, t…

Despite being oft-repeated, that educational claim isn't really true. In 2016, Trump beat Hillary in white college-educated women, despite all the claims about gender and education popular in certain sections of media. I think one big problem with discussion about American politics today is that we all pretend like "Republican" and "Democrat" are in any way logically consistent groups representing two opinions. The t…

> Despite being oft-repeated, that educational claim isn't really true.

I agree with this, it’s been my experience that most of the most intelligent and highly educated people I know are solidly GOP…except those who work in higher education. Although…some of them in higher education I know vote GOP, but claim they don’t, or don’t disclose it publicly.

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