It's Good To Be Rich

Here is an unsurprising Times story I expect to see promoted by every lefty blog:

Gap in Life Expectancy Widens for the Nation

By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON — New government research has found “large and growing” disparities in life expectancy for richer and poorer Americans, paralleling the growth of income inequality in the last two decades.

Life expectancy for the nation as a whole has increased, the researchers said, but affluent people have experienced greater gains, and this, in turn, has caused a widening gap.

Surely this is a clarion call for greater access to affordable health insurance.

As to possible explanations, if you pause, reflect, and indulge your common sense you will get many of them.  Cigarette smoking, for example, has become a largely working class phenomenon.  Violent crime is higher in poor neighborhoods.   A lifestyle commitment to alcohol or drug abuse generally leads to less income and a shorter life.  Someone well enough organized to earn lots of money is more likely to be well enough organized to learn how to protect their health.

Here is the Times report:

While researchers do not agree on an explanation for the widening gap, they have suggested many reasons, including these:

¶Doctors can detect and treat many forms of cancer and heart disease because of advances in medical science and technology. People who are affluent and better educated are more likely to take advantage of these discoveries.

¶Smoking has declined more rapidly among people with greater education and income.

¶Lower-income people are more likely to live in unsafe neighborhoods, to engage in risky or unhealthy behavior and to eat unhealthy food.

¶Lower-income people are less likely to have health insurance, so they are less likely to receive checkups, screenings, diagnostic tests, prescription drugs and other types of care.

...

Robert E. Moffit, director of the Center for Health Policy Studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said one reason for the growing disparities might be “a very significant gap in health literacy” — what people know about diet, exercise and healthy lifestyles. Middle-class and upper-income people have greater access to the huge amounts of health information on the Internet, Mr. Moffit said.

Thomas P. Miller, a health economist at the American Enterprise Institute, agreed.

“People with more education tend to have a longer time horizon,” Mr. Miller said. “They are more likely to look at the long-term consequences of their health behavior. They are more assertive in seeking out treatments and more likely to adhere to treatment advice from physicians.”

The Times found an advocate for greater government involvement:

Some health economists contend that the disparities between rich and poor inevitably widen as doctors make gains in treating the major causes of death.

Nancy Krieger, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, rejected that idea. Professor Krieger investigated changes in the rate of premature mortality (dying before the age of 65) and infant death from 1960 to 2002 [link to "The Fall and Rise of US Inequities in Premature Mortality: 1960–2002"].

]. She found that inequities shrank from 1966 to 1980, but then widened.

“The recent trend of growing disparities in health status is not inevitable,” she said. “From 1966 to 1980, socioeconomic disparities declined in tandem with a decline in mortality rates.”

The creation of Medicaid and Medicare, community health centers, the “war on poverty” and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 all probably contributed to the earlier narrowing of health disparities, Professor Krieger said.

It is also the case that income inequality was not rising dramatically from 1966 to 1980.  Dr. Krieger was looking at quintiles; this won't be exactly comparable, but Pikkety-Saez provide the income share for the top decile over time:

1960  31.7%
1970  31.5
1980  32.9
1990  38.8
1998  41.4

AIDS arrived in the 80's as well.

Comments

[SteveMG]

This'll be good for about 3 months of columns from Herbert.

The same friggin' column.

[ben]

"Lower-income people are more likely to live in unsafe neighborhoods, to engage in risky or unhealthy behavior and to eat unhealthy food."

That's why we should demand the government divert funds from the War on Terror so they can fund more earth shattering and ground breaking research like this.

But since these people probably tend to vote Democratic rather than Republican, maybe it will be hard to prove its a Bush-Rove conspiracy to shorten their lifespans.

[clarice]

Well the government was not injecting rich white guys with drugs only to imprison them or creating AIDS to kill them--The govt induced AIDS had a special marker that made it only work on people of color and the poor. Ask Rev Wright.

But there is a solution--send young thugs out to rich oldster enclaves with free crack , smokes and heroin ...let's see how that works. Or --here's another--forbid them to use their own doctors.set up mandatory public clinics for them run by the USPS.

[kim]

The rich fare different than you and I.
=======================

[boris]

If it were possible to measure how much medicine extends life for the different income groups, I'd bet that statistic would not favor the higher income groups. IOW doctors and medicine probably extend more years of life in the non-uppermost groups.

[ben]

Whoops make that maybe it will be easy to prove its a Bush-Rove conspiracy..

[sbw]

Let me get this straight. The article is suggesting a correlation? That one who is wealthier is, because of that wealth, healthier?

How about education? One who is more educated is more likely to be richer and healthier. Perhaps the correlation is between education and health.

Perhaps, instead of a crusade to transfer wealth, we should have a crusade to straighten out education. Lord knows what we are doing now isn't enough.

[Jane]

I dunno, one of my biggest fears is outliving my money. if that happens I'd prefer a short life expectancy.

[KSdJ]

See why poor people tell you they're poor. I am not dying, you are. I lost two teeth while you were making all that cash. I got diseases cause the money's gone. So, when rich people die no one cares. See why. Government employees die no one cares. They tend to die right at retirement. They also tend to die just before the retirement check shows up. See why?

Lucifer makes a good deal there. Of course that's how you lost your money and why you will never have any. He's the best it's gonna get, so wise up and join in. Bill? Hillary, Obama? Dems and money. Dems and government work? Dems and hour wage? Dems and free health care? Dems and your deal.

Weather is the Al Gore choice, no one can really blame anybody and it's a lot of people.

Can I go to the gym now?

[PeterUK]

"I dunno, one of my biggest fears is outliving my money. if that happens I'd prefer a short life expectancy."

My fear is my money outliving me,it means that I haven't enjoyed myself as much as I should have.Who will look after it when I am gone,who will,count it and caress it like I do? My precious.

[ben]

I think we should be worried here....the point of the exercise is that its terribly unfair that Republicans have longer lifespans than, say, drug dealers.
Since it will be difficult to extend the lives of drug dealers, the only solution will be to shorten the lives of Republicans.

[Jane]

PUK,

I really want to get there.

[hit and run]

PUK, email me, I can help you and your money achieve the peace of mind you desire.

[ben]

PUK
I promise not to spend a penny of it fighting global warming.

[hit and run]

I won't spend it on anything but booze.

(I thought about trying to fake up some other noble causes to claim I would spend it on, but who am I kidding, who would believe that?)

[Roy Mustang]

Unequal lifespans for some or equal early death for all.

[PeterUK]

Sorry,love of money is the root of all evil,I couldn't live with myself If i left it to any of you and it made you miserable.This is my burden to bear alone,I'm taking it with me.I feel better already.

Jane my generation is a bunch of geriatric terrorists,so your's will be even worse,you have the class of 1942 to live down to.

[Jane]

PUK,

I look forward to it.

[clarice]

If you've a sou left in your pocket at the end, whistle..and we'll find a way to spend it that will not corrupt anyone but we two incorruptibles.

[hit and run]

PUK, I advise that you burn it. The money. And youtube it.

You could make millions!

[M. Simon]

*

Schizophrenia and Tobacco

*

[PeterUK]

H&R,
I shall,it's coming down the crematorium with me.

[clarice]

That's a very interesting article, m. simon. I think the state should exempt certified schizophrenics from paying that tax. Do you suppose nicorette--that is another form of nicotine delivery-- would work as well? If so, why not just get it medically perscribed?

[Elliott]

Sporting tries, H&R and Ben, but if Labour (ZaNU and otherwise) hasn't managed to confiscate Mr. UK's capital and holdings, what chance do you two have?

[kim]

Nicotine is, by and large, a good drug; it just shouldn't be smoked. It makes ulcers a little harder to cure, but aids digestion. It can worsen arrhythmias, and circulation, but it usually improves mood, and combats hunger, thirst and fatigue. Think how many people are alive because so many truck drivers smoke.

They didn't put it in peace pipes for nothing.
===========================

[M. Simon]

Clarice-

Smoked drugs let you calibrate the dose better than taking a pill or using a patch. Chewing gum might work.

I personally have mild schizophrenia - an adjunct to creativity so I'm told. And I smoke cigarettes.

However, I roll my own to avoid the horrendous tax on ready mades.

==

My estimate is that 90% of the drug users in this country are self medicating for mental problems. That includes heroin and meth. The literature is extensive on the subject. I have written quite a lot on it (in layman's terms) myself.

Drugs are just what the name implies. Drugs. Except that we use that term as a dirty word.

It turns out that our drug war is in fact a class war.

Class War
Treatment vs Recreation
Round Pegs In Round Holes

We are filling our prisons with people who supply medicines to the sick.

It is the stupidest thing I can imagine. It causes huge resents in the black community and solves no problem. Not that they understand anything about this except profit and loss.

It also explains why demand for drugs is so inelastic to price changes, the fear of arrest etc. People want their medicine.

We have turned a medical problem into a moral problem. Not good.

Bush is a good guy on this relatively. After 9/11 he retasked a significant number of FBI Agents from drugs to the war. He has also been squeezing money out of Federally Funded drug task forces.

BTW The NIDA says drug use is 50% genetic.

From my research the other 50% is trauma. Alcoholism after the Civil War was called the soldier's disease.

So on top of everything else the drug war is a war on the traumatized. At least 70% of female heroin users have been sexually assaulted. I have heard anecdotal evidence from commenters who say in their experience the figure should be 100%. However, 70% is a number supported by research.

[bgates]

I agree with M Simon on decriminalization, though I think his characterization of dealers is quite a bit too humanitarian. However -
The Times found an advocate for greater government involvement - that I find hard to believe.

[stayappleaus]

crown. I grew that day. I know Forest. most suggested even know height. then eventually

[Rick Guthry]

between obesity and over medicating I bet there is a trendous amount people can complain about our society. All we have to do though is to start to change it!

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