Only in America would an argument be mounted that receiving money from the government is bad for your health

A good-on-ya to Peter Martin for unearthing this little bewdy: The Short-Term Mortality Consequences of Income Receipt.
This is an argument for the basic proposition that people on low incomes are likely to die shortly after they receive welfare payments, one-off stimulus payments or tax rebate cheques, because being 'flush' with money they consume more or become more active.
Yeah, and starving people often died immediately after being fed by liberating troops in the Second World War too.
I particularly liked the last para which tends to stick in the craw; "Finally, we noted in the introduction that some health researchers have suggested that a way to reduce inequality in health outcomes across socioeconomic groups is to simply increase income transfers to low income groups. The results in this paper indicate that the benefits of such a policy regime shift are far from certain. There is little evidence to date that cash transfers increase health. In contrast, the results in this paper show that, in the short run, there is a pronounced negative consequence to cash infusions for a wide variety of groups."

This truly earth-shattering research comes from a couple of economists working out of Notre Dame and Maryland universities in America. Figures.