I was struck by one line in this article: "Life expectancy in the coastal metro areas — both east and west — has improved at roughly the same rate as in Canada." Indeed, the American death trip has been driven by only part of the country 1/ nytimes.com/2019/11/26/hea…
And while the divergence is surely linked to growing regional economic disparities, there's a pretty clear red-blue divide reflecting state policies. Consider NY v. TX 2/ jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/… 
In 1990 Texas actually had higher life expectancy, but now NY is far ahead. Surely this has something to do with expanding health coverage, maybe also to do with environmental policies. 3/
In general, progressive US states have experienced falling mortality along with the rest of the advanced world. Red America is where things are different 4/
