The Rise of Depression in the United States

The Rise of Depression in the U.S.

The Rise of Depression in the U.S.

Depression and divorce are up in the United States 

By Jones William 

Depression Affects All Ages

Depression is a mental health disorder and it’s increasing in the United States. Depression doesn’t just affect the brain, the disorder also has physical and emotional effects. Anyone can be affected, children, adolescents, and adults. Despite being one of the most advanced countries in the world, an estimated 30%  of Americans are currently suffering from depression. When compared to 2015 data, this is an increase of 10%; making it the highest rate of depression ever recorded for Americans. A third of American women are victims of depression, that’s about twice as many as men.  Furthermore, individuals aged 18-35 record are subject to higher rates of depression than other age groups.

Factors Contributing to Increasing Prevalence of Depression

Economic Hardship in America: The middle class in the United States has been steadily shrinking since Ronald Reagan. The promise of a better life than that of your parents had is gone. Many “middle-class” people are maintaining the middle class life style by high credit card debt, and home equity loans. Facing disappointing realities, and suffering from financial stress, depression becomes the order of the day.

Poor community ties and shattered relationships: In the last twenty years  church fellowship and neighborhood activities have dramatically decreased. The COVID-19 pandemic has isolated Americans from their support system. We rarely even say hello to our neighbors. Divorce rates have skyrocketed. As those  human networks disintegrate we as a society are experiencing an increased isolating technology boom. This technology boom, including the use of social media, decreases face-to-face interactions. It is difficult to experience healthy relationships, and normal communication when all interaction between individuals are at a distance or on line. As a result, a sense of belonging, the meaning and purpose of life, and familiar human support systems are lost.

Expectations of Americans are too high: Some experts believe that despite mental health communities and schools having good intentions; promoting unrealistic self-positive expectations can be harmful. Fostering the notion that all Americans “can be anything they want or dream” opens the door, especially for adolescents and young adults, to experience disgrace and disappointment, when the reality of their life fails to match what they had imagined for themselves. Sounds like  a guarantee for misery and depression.

Is it possible to lower depression rates and cases in the U.S.?

The United States government and citizens can do several things at societal levels to curb depression. For instance, meeting the basic needs of citizens and improving their interpersonal relationships and community ties can reduce depression rates and cases.

Nurturing Social Connections: Post pandemic America feels different than pre-COVID America. The current high depression rates are likely to decline as the country moves towards “normalcy” and social networks are revitalized. Since human beings are social beings, social isolation and loneliness can cause mental and physical disorders such as depression, headaches, suicide, anxiety, in addition to many other problems. When people are connected to their country, their community, their friends, and family members, reducing depression is achievable.

Meeting Basic Needs: Increased depression rates from food insecurity and homelessness could be  reduced if our government can find ways to meet its citizen’s basic needs. In colleges and universities, three out of five students have basic needs challenges. They suffer from hunger, homelessness, and lack of affordable healthcare services. There is a direct link between financial stress and depression. Furthermore, individuals suffering from mental illness tend not to seek services because of the expense.

Ensuring Mental Healthcare is Available: Accessing mental healthcare is difficult in many areas of the country. Lack of money and insurance coverage prevents many Americans from getting the needed  mental healthcare services. To make matters worse, in many areas of the United States there are no mental health clinics, practitioners, or hospitals. Government funding for mental health services is sorely lacking and with Medicaid and Affordable Care not being available in many states with Republican governors is a big problem.

Conclusion

Depression is a major health concern in the United States. Men, women, and children can all be victims of mental illness. Depression risks among adolescents and young adults have increased dramatically in recent  decades. The question becomes, will our government ever prioritize the well being of the majority of American citizens over the billionaire class? Until that question can be answered we will live with a patchwork of laws and a failure of services.

Sources

https://www.health.com/depression-rates-higher-than-ever-things-to-change-7501286

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140930132832.htm

https://abc3340.com/news/nation-world/depression-on-the-rise-in-the-us-cdc-says-centers-disease-control-prevention-mental-health

http://www.drrevelmiller.com/2019/09/why-is-depression-so-common-in-the-usa/

Health Care Options

Health Care Options

By Trevor K. McNeil

The Tangled Web of Healthcare

It has come to my attention that some potential leaders in the United States of America (a.k.a. “The Greatest Country in the World” and the a.k.a. “Free World”) are considering reform to their currently mostly private, insurance-only approach to healthcare. A system which allows for medical professionals, who have sworn an apparently empty oath to ‘do no harm’, deny America’s cutting edge medical technology to anyone who can’t pay. A situation from 1968 sounds laughable, but it is the system the Republicans want to return to. After being shot 3 times doctors refused to operate on Andy Warhol until he signed a check to cover the costs. The three bullets embedded in his torso notwithstanding. Yet there are many, particularly on the Republican side of the aisle, who act as though the likes of Obama and Biden are proposing the revival of eugenics into mainstream practice.

Terror Tales

There are lots of stories, most with the flagrant exaggeration of a campfire terror tale, spoke by a drunk high schooler, about ‘state controlled medicine.’ A system, it should be noted, that has enjoyed great success in every industrialized, western nation, except America, since the 1940s. Even a small island nation like New Zealand easily out-paced the great and powerful U.S. of A. in terms of accessibility to medical care. New Zealand also reported better statistics than the U.S., on infant mortality rates and  over-dose death rates. Do people have to wait? Yes. Then again most of them survived and there don’t tend to be people dying at home of burst appendix because they have no health coverage. Which is more than can be said for “the land of the free.”

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Lies About Medicare For All

Lies About Medicare For All

By D. S. Mitchell

 

Drop The Labels

Honest health care policy experts know that the solution to fix the American health care system is staring us in the face, and it is single-payer. Whether dubbed “Medicare-for-All” or an “expansion of Medicaid” through ObamaCare. The solution is easy when labels like “socialism” “liberalism” “progressivism” are ignored. Trump and his DOJ is in court at this very moment trying to invalidate the ACA (ObamaCare). It seems that the more resistance Republicans arouse over destroying ObamaCare the voices for Medicare-for-All grows louder.

Health Care As A Right

The evidence is clear, Americans believe that every person has a right to health care, irrespective of their ability to pay. We as a people, believe that we have an obligation to take care of each other. In fact, there is more momentum for the adoption of a single-payer health care system than at any time in our history.

Scuttle Safety Net

Despite its enormous popularity and unparalleled record of success Republicans are neck-deep in their war against the nation’s health care safety net, whether it is Medicare, Medicaid or the ACA.  New Republican proposals have emerged since the 2016 election that would slash benefits for the elderly and leave older Americans at the mercy of the “for profit” insurance industry.

Voucher Plans

When Paul Ryan was Speaker of the House he was extremely vocal in his attacks against both Medicaid and Medicare. He supported a voucher program that would transfer more costs on to seniors and leave them at the mercy of the private insurance industry.  Just because Ryan is gone, doesn’t mean that the Republicans have jettisoned that philosophy. The actions to undermine Medicare and Medicaid are ongoing and must be stopped.  It is not just about protecting our existing Medicare system, it is about ensuring that every citizen has access to excellent health care as a right. In such a system it definitely works best when “everybody is in, and nobody is out.”

An American Tragedy

It is believed one hundred Americans die everyday from the lack of health insurance. That is over 30,000 unnecessary deaths each year and that number is expected to grow steadily over the next decade. This is an American tragedy.

Republican Tax Scam

The Republican tax scam was hard on American health care. Millions remain uncovered and millions more are losing coverage due to increased cost for insurance brought on by the elimination of the ACA insurance “mandate”. The insurance mandate was a device used by the ACA plan to expand the pool of healthy people in the system to keep prices down.

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