Discussion: Health and Wealth

Health and Wealth
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Health and Wealth
Introduction.
Health is the perfect physical, mental, and emotional state of any human being or other living organisms, which when affected, altered, or changed in any way deems the person ill and in need of medical care. Wealth refers to an abundance of something, especially valuable possessions and money. Unfortunately, in today’s world, attaining optimum care, which should be universal, varies depending on one’s wealth or financial status. This variation creates a big difference in the type of medical care that someone from a well-off family gets compared to someone from a poor background. Additionally, most high-end hospitals that provide high-quality medical care have rich people as their patients, whereas people from poor backgrounds go to public hospitals and other free clinics where medical care is faced with several challenges such as insufficient medical practitioners, insufficient drugs/medicines, and inadequate as well poor quality of medical equipment. In most cases, low-income earners end up incurring more costs while also suffering and eventually dying from treatable conditions. In England, for example, Bennet et al. (2018) indicate that poor people end up dying early compared to rich people. With difficulties in accessing healthcare services rising due to the increased cost of healthcare, the revelation above comes as no surprise. Therefore, provided herein is a discussion of the relationship between wealth and health and how the former influences the latter.
Mental and physical health is greatly influenced by financial health (Purnell, 2015, pp. 163-171). This is why stress caused by monetary problems can lead to more health problems for more impoverished families. In an early 2015 survey by the American Psychological Association, it was noted that money was on top of the list of things that people are most worried about. In the survey discussed above, money was ranked even higher than work-related issues, family and health. This is a major...