So Far From God...

It's widely known in Mexico that the closer you get to the United States, the greater your chances of being horribly murdered, most likely by an American gun. But we were surprised to learn that the closer a Mexican woman lives to the US, the greater her chances are of developing breast cancer. Must be all that toxic rhetoric we've been hearing about.

Meanwhile, in Texas at least, the closer you live to Mexico, the greater your chances of living a much-longer-than-average life. Surely this is because the US has the Best Healthcare System in the World(TM)!

And although they may not have health insurance, many South Texans cross the border into Mexico to see doctors and get prescriptions filled for a small fraction of the cost in the United States. (In a recent study of border residents, roughly half of the sample population reported crossing the border for health care — though this number is dropping because of drug violence in Mexico.)

“The presence of Mexican care is a good thing for those who have no health insurance in this area,” said Dejun Su, director of the South Texas Border Health Disparities Center at the University of Texas-Pan American. “It’s an advantage people living in poverty in big metropolitan areas in the U.S. don’t have.”

You're welcome, America.