[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', '
')
Bush was an admitted alcoholic..., maybe that's why the rising drug deaths are concentrated in Republican areas, including Texas

[Shaved Monkey]

Economy goes bad, pressures build,expectations are thwarted, people look for escapes

[PrestonSturges]

Economically, it's the recession that started under Bush. But before that somehow Reagan convinced the white working class that unions were their enemies.



Culturally, maybe we should give credit to conservative America's favorite drug addict, the king of hillbilly heroine, pill popping, doctor shopping Rush.

[PrestonSturges]

As Kentucky's new governor promises to dismantle healthcare, poor rural whites ponder being cut of from the basic care that barely keeps them alive.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... ge%2Fstory

[Cog]

Hmm I might have to add Kentucky as a retirement possibility. Sounds like the governor is on the right track.

[Newfie]

Cog,
How will cover medical expense for yourself and family when you retire?

[Cog]

I will purchase health insurance just like most people do. a kind of nice feature about Obamacare is it only counts income and not assets. so theoretically you could have a million dollars in the bank and get absolutely free healthcare. not that I'm going to go that route though

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', 'E')conomically, it's the recession that started under Bush.

[Revi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shaved Monkey', 'E')conomy goes bad, pressures build,expectations are thwarted, people look for escapes

[hvacman]

I see this as depression-related and a part of the RM's Peak Oil Dynamic. The drugs have always been around, but you have to have sunk to a certain level to get so hooked it's killing you. These are the guys that used to have actual "careers" in blue-collar factory jobs...not only with a stable and good income, but with a sense of identity and self-worth. Jobs that have left the country for good and will only come back when plentiful and cheap oil is available again from thriving, profitable oil companies...i.e. never.

Back in the early 2000's, I taught basic math at a local builders' exchange training center, targeting the laid-off workers from various local industries that had been shut down, particularly the paper mill and the saw mills. Trying to prepare the workers for new careers in the HVAC trades - particularly HVAC service, which is one of the few blue-collar-friendly careers in demand that pays OK. Some of them made it and I see them around town today, busy fixing things...but I could tell a lot of them just weren't going to. Reading skills were poor. Math skills were poor. And worst of all, learning skills were poor. With today's blue-collar work, you have to be a life-long learner, as things are always changing. And be able to read at a competent level, as a lot of what you need are in instruction manuals. You can't fake it. You can't "learn by doing" when trouble-shooting the circuit board on a dead gas furnace. Unlike 50 years ago, you can't become a decent auto mechanic these days with a set of wrenches and screwdrivers fiddling under an old jalopy under a shade tree. You need scanners, multi-meters, online access to trouble-code manuals and circuit diagrams. Follow processes or fry the electronics and you're screwed.

If you can't do that, you flip burgers full-time while standing next to the high school kid just working for gas money, go home to a six pack or worse and load up, and slowly decay and become a statistic...the ugly side of the POD...

[PrestonSturges]

Sadly I can see a lot of my friends in their 50s are operating at a somewhat impaired level due to too much smoking and drinking and lack of exercise. They can do repetitive tasks but just aren't capable of learning new skill. Old dogs, new tricks, yadda yadda.

Also, even if someone isn't raining, they need to be stretching the brain on a regular basis. I've read about fifty rather technical books this year, mostly purchased used on Amazon for $5 or less.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hy Did the Death Rate Rise Among Middle-Aged White Americans?

Between 1999 and 2013, among whites aged forty-five to fifty-four whose educational qualifications are limited to a high-school diploma or below, the number of deaths per hundred thousand people rose by 134.4. That represents a jump in the death rate of more than twenty per cent.

...

In advanced societies outside wartime, it is very unusual for large groups of the population to see such a jump in mortality rates.

...

Relative to the period before 1999, there are now more people over fifty in the forty-five-to-fifty-four age group, and older people always have higher death rates. Because of this age-composition factor alone, you would expect the mortality rate of the age group as a whole to have risen. Drugs and alcohol weren’t necessarily the only things involved.

How big is this age-composition effect? After doing a bit of arithmetic, Cohen argued that it could account for roughly half of the observed increase in mortality. Gelman originally went further, saying that once the numbers were adjusted for the age effect there was no rise in the death rate, but rather a flattening out.
http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/why-is-the-death-rate-rising-among-middle-aged-white-americans?intcid=mod-most-popular

[Newfie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', 'I') will purchase health insurance just like most people do. a kind of nice feature about Obamacare is it only counts income and not assets. so theoretically you could have a million dollars in the bank and get absolutely free healthcare. not that I'm going to go that route though

[Plantagenet]

The healthcare co-op set up under Obamacare went bankrupt in Kentucky in October before the election occurred. The new governor had nothing to do with the collapse of the Kentucky co-op ---it collapsed because of innate flaws in the way it set up in accordance with the Obamacare law. Another 11 Obamacare co-ops have gone bankrupt elsewhere in the country so far, costing taxpayers about 1.2 billion in wasted tax dollars.

The program to set up local "healthcare co-ops" part of the Obamacare program is turning out to be an utter fiasco.

However, the national Obamacare website is still open, and the Ocare program will continue to be available in Kentucky.

[Cog]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', 'I') will purchase health insurance just like most people do. a kind of nice feature about Obamacare is it only counts income and not assets. so theoretically you could have a million dollars in the bank and get absolutely free healthcare. not that I'm going to go that route though

[Newfie]

I had not heard of any health care coops going bankrupt. Not doubting you, just saying.

As for cheap health care cruisers talk about that a lot. Apparently you can get some pretty decent health insurance eprovided you stay in the USA no more than 4 months a year.

Many other find they can get decent health care overseas just paying out of pocket.

When I took my sabbatical a few years ago out monthly premium, to retain my work health coverage was $2,450/ month. Yeah.

10 years is over my event horizion, can't worry too much about that.

[PrestonSturges]

Well since "Obamacare" is really just private insurance, and the insurance companies have a hard time making money after nearly collapsing in 2008. Aside from all the giggling on the right, nobody still has anything useful to say. The obvious point is that the US is the only nation committed to private health insurance companies. Nobody else on the planet tries to make this work, but it's not clear how many hundreds of thousands of people must die and how much of our civilization must be dismantled. But people are dying, and the GOP is promising to destroy anything that might help.

Will someone please talk some sense to the Republican politicians before they kill more people?

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', ' ')the US is the only nation committed to private health insurance companies. Nobody else on the planet tries to make this work..... the GOP ....

[Cog]

Not a single Republican in the House or Senate voted for ObamaCare. The Dems own this one completely.

Still wondering where my average savings of $2500/year is going to come through. I could buy some quality AR's and some ammo with that money.

[Newfie]

Well I'm going on Medicare but my wife will go ACA for a couple of years.

If you use my employers number of $2500 per month we will make that up in under 2 months.