July 22, 2008 - Few of us in Sawtown over the age of 18 use the library. With longer work days, and more hectic family life, what with the kid’s band practice, hockey games, and baseball, there’s little time left for reading, picnics, or the more relaxed aspects of life. It’s almost to the point that the only relaxation available is sitting in the doctor’s waiting room or waiting for the dentist as she moves from one patient’s cubicle to another.
Luckily our local sawbones and our dentist have a commitment to the lifelong education of Sawtown residents. Their waiting rooms and reception areas are stocked monthly with the latest journals and magazines.
It is always easy to tell when one of our truck drivers had a doctor’s appointment since he fills the airwaves with his new found knowledge about migration patterns of ancient civilizations based on the newest DNA research. My own recent rip to the dentist exposed me to the current issue of Scientific American.
A series of factoids revealed that the well off experience less pain than the rest of us do. At my first reading of this I thought the study represented a monumentally waste of some one’s money. Any woodworker who has been on the job more than a month could tell you that. It’s a rare evening when the boss goes home tired and sore and an even rarer one when we do not.
But, upon longer reflection I came to realize that there was more to the story than I thought. Apparently 28% of Americans are in physical pain at any given time. Of these, 34.2 % earn less than $30,000/year while for those earning more than $100,000, only 22.9% reported being in pain. As the saying goes, “it’s good to be rich”. I wonder if their lack of pain was in any way related to the Bush tax cuts?
The educate gap was even larger than the income gap. Only 20.2% of those reporting pain had a college degree, while more than 33% of those in pain did not finish high school. I plan to use this to encourage my kids to study. Although this statistic could be all messed up since I know that when my kids screw up in school they do feel pain. I know this since I am the one usually inflicting it.
Oddly enough my mother-in-law, who is one of those mercilessly happy people, also received some redemption. It appears that those who responded they were satisfied with life reported an average pain rating of .66. Whereas those who responded that they were not satisfied with life reported an average pain rating of 2.26. Of course if the pain preceded the rating then it’s possible that the reason they were dissatisfied with life was that because were in pain.
The nation loses $60 billion dollars per year in productivity because of pain. This could mean that universal health insurance could pay for itself, assuming that the inability to get pain medication was in part a reason for the productivity loss. Likewise, we buy $13.8 billion dollars worth of prescription painkillers a year. I assume this does not include the national bill for vodka, whiskey, and beer.
There is something deeply disturbing about these statistics. There is a pain gap. The less wealth one has, and the less well educated one is, the more pain one suffers. If the pursuit of happiness so valued in our Declaration of Independence can be correlated to pain, something is surely amiss.
It would be interesting to see if the pain/income gap exists in other industrialized countries. Do poorer Finns who pay nothing for health insurance have more pain than rich Finns? Of course the gap between poor Finns and rich Finns is dramatically smaller than between poor Americans and rich Americans.
I hate to think how the gap grows if we include mental anguish to the physical pain gap. Having to choose between paying the mortgage or taking a child to the doctor is a pain reserved for the working poor. Few rich families have to look their children in the eyes and tell them that there is no money for college despite their having gained admittance, thereby condemning another generation to the wrong side of the pain gap.
More than 80% of Americans in a recent survey responded that they thought the country was going in the wrong the direction. I don’t know if anyone from Sawtown was in that survey sample, but given the results it won’t surprise me if they interviewed the entire community. The challenge is of course to turn pain, frustration, and hopelessness into political and social action.
There are a million reasons not to vote and at least as many not to vote for the Democratic candidate. I, for one, certainly do not see him as the change agent that he claims to be. But even this Democratic candidate will make things better than they are.
He will make better appointments to the NLRB, he will sign the Employee Free Choice Act, he will most likely stop the pain of thousands of families who have already lost family members in Iraq and for those who will suffer future losses should the Republican candidate prevail. The Democratic candidate will help the poor and hopefully restore the rule of law to our nation. He will follow the lead of a Democratic controlled Congress that will put an end to tax breaks for the rich and begin to rebuild our industrial base, reform the health insurance system, stop the attacks on social security, reduce the abuse of corporate power, and approve reasonable appointments to the Supreme Court. Any one of these actions justifies voting and pulling, punching, or marking the ballot for the Democrat (does anyone mark ballots any more?).
Our choice is clear. We can expand the numbers of the poor who are in pain or we can rise above our selfish single issue concerns, that if carried into the voting booth condemn millions more to another 4 years of hurt.
The other article I read while waiting for my own pain to begin was the relationship between dance and memory loss. Apparently learning to tango also reduces the probably of Parkinson's or something. I only hope this month’s issue is out of the office before Bridget goes for her teeth cleaning next month. I really don’t look forward to tango lessons. I’m just not that Finnish.
