"According to a 1999 study in the British Medical Journal, higher income is, in fact, 'casually associated with greater longevity.' But when it comes to living longer, billionaires may not be that much better off than mere millionaires. 'While an extra dollar of income is protective,' the study reads, 'the amount of protective effect tails off as total income rises.'
The rich not only tend to live longer, but are healthier as well. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 23% of people below the poverty threshold, defined as 'poor,' are limited by chronic disease, whereas only 10% of 'non-poor,' those with an income 200% or greater than the poverty threshold, are.
What accounts for these gaps? Traditional theories espouse that greater wealth means greater access to medical care. But as Forbes' Dan Seligman points out in his June 2004 article, 'Why the Rich Live Longer,' if access was the key, the health gap between the upper and lower classes should have shrunk with the advent of America's Medicare and Medicaid, not to mention employer-sponsored health insurance.
Some use the 'inequality is a killer' theory, arguing that the health gap between the rich and the poor exists because low social status increases stress and anxiety, which increases susceptibility to disease. It's not entirely clear, though, whether lower-level civil servants suffer less anxiety than, say, chief executives and billionaires. Struggling to pay your bills and having to answer to angry stockholders are both stressful, each in their own way."