One reason why many educated people avoid taking regular comprehensive physical examinations, even though they can afford it, is that they dread the discovery of a dire malady. They say they feel fine anyway. They resent being nagged about it, and claim personal responsibility for their health. Their loved ones practically have to drag them to hospital for checkups, lest by the time illness exhibits itself, it has become so expensive, and perhaps impossible, to cure. In like manner, though the government has proclaimed, since time immemorial, poverty elimination as a key objective, it has tried to avoid facing the facts about it. It has dreaded to see its own poverty statistics.
Social Climate: The dread of poverty statistics
