Healthcare Inequality

One of the largest social inequality issues in America today is healthcare. There is a shocking amount of proof that healthcare systems are severely racist and sexist and it puts people of different backgrounds at risk of poorer quality of life. The World Health Organization has determined that geographic locale, ethnicity, education, environmental stress, and access to a health care system are social determinants of health and health inequities. The life expectancy of the wealthiest Americans now exceeds that of the poorest by 10-15 years. Poor Americans have worse access to health care than the rest of the population but health care can still affect even people in the middle upper class. For individuals with private insurance, rising premiums and cost sharing have undermined wage gains and have driven many households into debt and even bankruptcy.

In America these inequality issues stem from racism and preconceived notions of people in different backgrounds. Ethnic disparities in health care cost this nation more than $6 billion per year—a staggering amount in light of the fact that many conditions are preventable. Health Affairs said that “Of people in households making less than $22,500 a year, 38 percent reported being in poor or fair health in a survey taken between 2011 and 2013. That's more than three times the rate of health troubles faced by individuals in households making more than $47,700 a year, where only 12 percent of people reported being in poor to fair health”. This problem affects our nation as a whole and hurts those with less money the most. Although you would expect wealthier people to have better healthcare and health outcomes than poorer people, the United States has one of the largest gaps in the world for this issue.

Healthcare should be a basic human right for all and there are ways to change the current inequality going on in our healthcare systems. Groups like the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Health Care for Minorities are creating opportunities for people in minorities to get better access to health care without being judged because of their background, economic funds, race, or sex. They give grants and donations to companies and people who are working towards healthcare becoming a quality of life that everyone has access too. We should care about this topic because it affects everyone including ourselves and could be prevented by taking the stigma out of healthcare and changing things for the better. There are endless ways to get involved like doing research to know what the issues are in healthcare and then donating to causes you believe in, volunteering at organizations that have a similar goal to you, and spreading the word about this issue.