Ermahgerd! We’re all gonna die! Well, not really all of us…just poor people. An article at Daily Kos titled, “Inequality is killing us” cites a recent Vox article “Inequality isn’t just unfair — it’s making people sick,” where illnesses and death can be blamed on the usual it’s-not-fair-that-some-people-have-more-money-than-other-people reasoning.
The Vox article has lots of colorful graphs and stuff. The Daily Kos article basically just takes a jab at the Deep South for not expanding Medicaid.
From Daily Kos:
In addition to all the other things that wealth inequality is doing—establishing neo-caste systems, eroding mobility, perpetuating oppression, and generally stagnating societal development—Vox is reporting on a new book called The Health Gap by Michael Marmot that indicates that poverty and inequality themselves can make people sick and die earlier. …
What this also means, largely, is that government stimuli and welfare programs designed to reduce inequality might help make health outcomes better, especially for poor, minority, and other disadvantaged populations. This holds some interesting implications for the Affordable Care Act, which functions as both a stimulus and health care outcomes booster for low-income people. While this seems to be a boon to public health, states that have not chosen to expand Medicaid (largely in the Deep South) may set themselves back, creating a further reinforcement of inequality.
As a general rule, yes, people with more money are more likely to see a doctor when they are sick. However, if something as simple as monetary equality would make us all have the same life expectancy, then why has no country ever fully embraced this idea? Seems like an easy fix. Accio pecunium! I have just summoned everyone’s money and we’ll put it in a big pot to be divvied out equally to everyone. Problem solved, right?
Nope. You have to factor in “social gradient in health.” What this means, according to the Vox article, is that even at the same income level, there is still a “hierarchy.” Those with more power are healthier than those without. Alrighty, I’ll wave my magic wand, and let’s say everyone is equal in that department, too! Everyone lives, right?
Nah, because then we’d still have one more inequality. Gender. These same people howl about how bad we women-folk have it because we don’t make as much money–I just fixed that–and how not enough of us rule the workplace–fixed that too–yet they don’t address why women on average live longer than men regardless of wealth or hierarchy? How can that be if we are such lesser and unequal beings than men?
I really don’t want to know their solution to that inequality. Gird your loins, men.
