From Reuters Health:
People with fewer assets like real estate, savings, stocks and retirement accounts may be more likely to develop disabilities or die prematurely than wealthier individuals, a new study suggests. ...
“Interestingly, the link between wealth and health outcomes was seen in both the U.S. and England, which are two countries with very different health and social safety net systems,” said study leader Dr. Lena Makaroun of the VA Puget Sound Health Care System and the University of Washington in Seattle. ...
The similarities suggest that for low-wealth individuals, health care or financial benefits alone may not be enough to improve their health trajectory, she added. ...
Disability was defined as any difficulty in performing activities of daily living, such as dressing, eating and bathing. ...
I think there may be one important explanation that apparently wasn't considered by the study's authors. People become poorer because they're sicker. Sickness limits the ability to work. Even with relatively generous government benefits in England, the ability to accumulate wealth is closely tied to the ability to work. You can't put away much money if you're on the dole.
By the way, don't think that government healthcare in England pays for everything. It doesn't pay for dental care, for instance. Brits are notorious for having bad teeth. Poor dental care is bad for your general health. Of course, there are plenty of Americans who lack dental care.
2 comments:
The number of people I see who are poorer because they are sicker is relatively few, though they certainly exist. There are also a number of people that work in jobs that essentially use them up physically over 20-30 years, and those jobs aren't paying a ton of money on the whole to build net worth.
In fact, I'd guess less than 10% of the individuals I see have ever made over $30k in a single year, even those who have 20-30 year work histories. They don't have lower earnings because they're lazy, sick, or otherwise. They have lower earnings due to access to education, geographical employment availability, etc. In most of America, it's not easy to find jobs paying $40k plus on a 10th grade education.
On top of that, most of those employers in lower income areas are less likely to allow their employees to have time off for "unimportant" things like annual visits, dental appointments, physical therapy, etc. Those folks don't have a lot of expendable income to pay for those things out of pocket anyway.
Throw in that tobacco use and obesity is higher among the lower income brackets on top of the type of work available to many of them, and it's not hard to see why folks with lower incomes and lower net worth have worse health and shortened life expectancies.
But there is no Class System in America, as long as you are rich.
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