Headwinds, tailwinds and preferences for redistributive healthcare

Using different versions of a vignette, this study examines how preferences for redistributive healthcare change as luck plays a progressively stronger role in contributing to wealth and poverty. Participants saw one version of a vignette that describes why someone is wealthy or poor, with wealth and poverty stemming from effort, various mixtures of effort and luck, one dimension of luck, or two dimensions of luck. Results show that support for redistributive healthcare increases as bad luck becomes marginally more important in causing poverty but is unaffected as good luck becomes marginally more important in causing wealth. These results imply that preferences for redistributive healthcare may be sensitive to information that points to the unlucky barriers (headwinds) that affect the poor but insensitive to information that points to the lucky blessings (tailwinds) that affect the wealthy.