Health Inequality Quotes & Sayings

Everyone has a right to a job, everyone has a right to an education, everyone has a right to health care, everyone has a right to retirement security, everyone has a right to housing, and everyone has a right to peace. — Dennis Kucinich

I find it ironic that Republicans have such disdain for the lazy, and yet their solution to every problem is do nothing. Their answer to wealth inequality, do nothing. Health care? Do nothing. Climate change? Nothing. Racism? Doesn't exist. For a group of people so head over heels in love with self-reliance, they sure do recommend a lot of sitting on their ass. — Bill Maher

People differ in capacity, skill, health, strength; and unequal fortune is a necessary result of unequal condition. Such inequality is far from being disadvantageous either to individuals or to the community. — Pope Leo XIII

He [Hugo Chavez] put poverty at the heart of political debate. Rightly so, given the country's immense inequality and poverty. He invested heavily in social programs such as literacy, health clinics, and education. He promoted Venezuela's indigenous culture and urged compatriots to take pride in its pre-Columbian history. He called time on the US treating Latin America as its backyard. — Rory Carroll

Inequality and poverty, health and wealth are hand in hand.
And if we are all born equal that should be true in all lands.
We cannot divide the world between poor and rich countries.
It's like saying the ones are good, the others are junkies.
That can only increase more prejudice, miseries and sorrow.
Turning the wheel today it will lead to a better tomorrow. — Ana Claudia Antunes

There are places where you can live only when you are healthy, in those places when you fall ill it's the end of you for most people there can't afford medical care. — Bangambiki Habyarimana

No, I'm the human here. I'm the life at stake. I'm the one with fingernails, who feels pain.

Me. — Alicen Grey

The difference between rich and poor is becoming more extreme, and as income inequality widens the wealth gap in major nations, education, health and social mobility are all threatened. — Helene D. Gayle

I'm not suggesting that social scientists stop teaching and investigating classic topics like monopoly power, racial profiling and health inequality. But everyone knows that monopoly power is bad for markets, that people are racially biased and that illness is unequally distributed by social class. — Nicholas A. Christakis

Angus Deaton has written a wonderful book, The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality ... Deaton's book is a magisterial overview of health, income, and wealth from the industrial revolution to the present, taking in countries poor and rich. Not just jargon-free but equation-free, the book is written with a beautifully lucid style ... [P]owerfully argued and convincing. — Michael Marmot

I conceive two species of inequality among men; one which I call natural, or physical inequality, because it is established by nature, and consists in the difference of age, health, bodily strength, and the qualities of the mind, or of the soul; the other which may be termed moral, or political inequality, because it depends on a kind of convention, and is established, or at least authorized, by the common consent of mankind. This species of inequality consists in the different privileges, which some men enjoy, to the prejudice of others, such as that of being richer, more honoured, more powerful, and even that of exacting obedience from them. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane. — Martin Luther King Jr.

(a) Recent U.S. income growth primarily occurs at the top 1 percent of the income distribution. (b) As a result there is growing inequality. (c) And those at the bottom and in the middle are actually worse-off today than they were at the beginning of the century. (d) Inequalities in wealth are even greater than inequalities in income. (e) Inequalities are apparent not just in income but in a variety of other variables that reflect standards of living, such as insecurity and health. (f) Life is particularly harsh at the bottom - and the recession made it much worse. (g) There has been a hollowing out of the middle class. (h) There is little income mobility - the notion of America as a land of opportunity is a myth. (i) And America has more inequality than any other advanced industrialized country, it does less to correct these inequities, and inequality is growing more than in many other countries. — Joseph E. Stiglitz

This happens today: if the investments in the banks fall slightly ... a tragedy ... what can be done? But if people die of hunger, if they have nothing eat, if they have poor health, it does not matter! This is our crisis today! — Pope Francis

Currently, the wealthy who have no pre-existing conditions can afford high-quality health care, while the poor and sick are relegated to hoping for and negotiating whatever health care safety net might exist in their area. This neoliberal form of capitalism structuring health care in the United States has led to those with the highest burden of sickness being simultaneously those with the least access to care. — Seth Holmes