Income inequality, ill health and the tax bill

SV Subramanian and Ichiro Kawachi were cited in a recent Atlantic article, The Tax Bill Is a Health Bill.

“Income inequality has pathways through which it can impact health, no question about it,” said S (Subu) V Subramanian. “The concern for a society like the United States is more in relation to relative deprivation—in addition to absolute deprivation. Whether it’s through increasing premiums, or shrinking investment in the community, or disenfranchisement or displacement.”

Ichiro Kawachi posited that “social cohesion is eroded by a ‘pollution effect’: Wealth is sucked into private enclaves, gated subdivisions and neighborhoods where the 1 percent buy out of the health-care system and have less reason to interact with or care about the other 99.”

Read the article