Here is the short section from the book regarding inequality and health Even ignoring the question of access to health care, inequality by itself is detrimental to good health. In fact, emerging research indicates that inequality harms the health of the rich as well as the poor, although certainly not to the same extent (Wilkinson 1997). Even, the U.S. government's own Institute of Medicine reported: "... more egalitarian societies (i.e., those with a less steep differential between the richest and the poorest) have better average health" (Committee on Assuring the Health of the Public in the 21st Century 2006, p. 59). Just how would inequality harm the health of rich people? Unequal societies are more stressful because the privileged must exert control to protect their privileges from the poor. This control creates stresses for the controllers as well as the controlled. Recall how Adam Smith expressed the insecurity of the property owners who felt themselves to be under siege. More ominously, when inequality is combined with millions of people without access to health care, the threats to health become multiplied many times over. People weakened by the stresses associated with poverty are less able to fight off diseases. The compromised immune systems of poor people without adequate health care provide an excellent environment for diseases to mutate, inevitably becoming more resistant to medical treatment or perhaps even lethal. Oftentimes, diseases that arise in such conditions have more social mobility than the people who carry them. As a result, the pathogens bred in poverty can strike the wealthy as well. So, the growth of the uninsured population presents a danger even for people with good health insurance. To make matters worse, poverty tends to make people more susceptible to dangerous behavior patterns, such as the sharing of needles among drug addicts. Such activities leave them even more prone to disease, which ultimately puts the rest of society at risk. Michael Perelman