Health and income inequality

Yves Smith has an essay in Salon (see here) about health and income inequality.  In the essay, the work of Kate Pickett is mentioned, specifically a presentation she gave at the INET conference in 2010.  The graph below (click to enlarge) is from her presentation (full presentation here):

In general, the graph shows that health and social problems are worse in states where the income inequality is higher (although there is considerable variation).  I've written about income inequality in the past.  What interest me is the polarization this topic brings when it is mentioned (like everything else these days, I guess).  The argument for not addressing the issue of income inequality appears to be that somehow that would make us "socialists" or that we would further contaminate the "true" spirit of capitalism.  We simply must get beyond these ideological gauntlets.