Everyone’s talking about “affordability,” and for good reason. Too many Americans die of fentanyl overdoses because it is better than acknowledging their lives had fallen somehow even another level closer to hell. This isn’t Springsteen’s America anymore.

These ghosts of our nation drove overdose deaths to record highs during the pandemic. More than 100,000 Americans ODed in a 12-month period ending in April 2021, up almost 30 percent from the prior year. The majority of these deaths of despair, about 70 percent, were among men between the ages of 25 and 54, men who should be creating or influencing or building cars or welding high steel. Fortunately, fatal overdoses are in decline, though they still claim more Americans each year than they did in decades past.

Babies are dying too. Overall, the U.S. has the worst infant mortality rate in the industrial world. If the country’s five worst states made up their own nation, it’d be a world “leader,” where one out of five women of reproductive age live with a high risk of death and other poor maternal health outcomes, such as postpartum hemorrhage, pre-eclampsia, and preterm birth. It’s unsurprising that the places where babies die also have poor overall health, high rates of substance abuse, and mental health problems. No one mentioned race, but you’re thinking it. Hold that thought.

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