Because I sure don't see opiate abuse or ODs as a problem disproportionately affecting the poor. Sure, it affects a lot of poor people, but it also affects a fair number of the wealthy, quite possibly in numbers greater than their proportion in the population. (It's hard to judge because every celebrity overdose will be widely reported, so availability bias might be affecting my perception.)
Your rephrase lost an important nuance. I said "problems the relatively wealthy face." Bathroom choice is a problem wealth can't really solve or mitigate, so it's one they still face (either directly or through their children or peers).
> but it also affects a fair number of the wealthy, quite possibly in numbers greater than their proportion in the population. (It's hard to judge because every celebrity overdose will be widely reported, so availability bias might be affecting my perception.)
IMO, celebrity drug abuse is kinda a different thing, because celebrities are a special, tiny class that's easy to hold yourself apart from.
Why? That has nothing to do with my point. Even if the US was in fact the most equal society to ever exist, it's indisputable that it still has significant inequality, which was the starting point of my comment.
> it's indisputable that it still has significant inequality
I was trying to understand where you were coming from and giving you the opportunity to change my mind.
One factor in that is America is a pretty unequal society, and problems the relatively wealthy [1] face receive disproportionate attention than those primarily confined to the less wealthy. Not saying that's the only factor, but it's definitely a major one.
Ditto with de-industrialization, which a sibling comment mentioned. The relatively wealthy gain disproportionately from it in the short term, and those who are disproportionately hurt by it are less wealthy and typically live in unfashionable areas. Predictably, their problems get relatively less attention than they probably should (esp. since the relatively wealthy have the option of hand-waving those problems away with stuff like "Pareto efficiency," etc.).
[1] I'd count software engineers and similar professionals as "relatively wealthy."