Class and healthcare in the NY Times

The second article about class is in today’s New York Times, and once again we are treated to lousy reporting.

Using healthcare as the platform, the goal is more to tell us how much it sucks to be poor rather than inform us about anything we don’t already know.

Many risk factors for chronic diseases are now more common among the less educated than the better educated. Smoking has dropped sharply among the better educated, but not among the less.

Someone is confusing “education” with “intelligence” and “wisdom.” It’s not like the Ivy League has courses in not smoking. If people can’t figure out that smoking is bad for them, then they are just plain stupid. Of course there’s a connection between intelligence and class, which is why I recommend The Bell Curve by Herrnstein and Murray.

The story in the article about the Polish immigrant with a low prole job (low prole being a term from Paul Fussell’s book) adequately demonstrates how stupid she is.

But lot of what educated people think they “know” about health isn’t even true. I previously wrote about the study that showed it’s actually healthier to be a little overweight. There is also evidence that what we’ve been told about cholesterol is a big lie too. Visit Dr. Ravnskov’s website.

The article completely gets wrong the issue of hours worked:

People have less time, if they're poor, to devote to health maintenance behaviors when they are juggling two jobs.

It’s the middle class and upper middle class who are working longer hours. People with prole jobs who get paid by the hour still enjoy the forty hour workweek.

Comments

[William]

"It's the middle class and upper middle class who are working longer hours."
That's a rather careless comment without hard proof. I can see situations, for instance multiple jobs, that would refute that; but no other disagreements. I just find it interesting how the NYT remains a backbone of internet discussion, with fairly equal shares of criticisms & treating it like a source. Pretty impressive for one newspaper.