opioids

America in recent decades has seen increases to life expectancy, a proxy for quality health care. We gained, on average, 5.3 years between 1980 and 2014. But the uneven distribution of these gains may be influencing political affiliation.

Drug overdose deaths nearly tripled in the United States between 1999 and 2014, according to government statistics. Of the 47,055 overdose deaths in 2014, 61 percent involved an opioid.