Life At The Top : America Isn 't Just Better, It 's Longer

Janny Scott’s article, “Life at the Top in America Isn’t Just Better, It’s Longer,” follows three different people as they recover from a heart attack; Jean Miele, Will Wilson, and Ewa Rynczak Gora. Though each person in the article suffered a heart attack around the same time, their treatment and recovery processes were vastly different. Economic inequality had a huge influence on how each person was treated during and after their heart attacks. When Mr. Miele suffered his heart attack, he understandably chose the nicest hospital to receive his treatment. However, when Ms. Gora was suffering from her heart attack, she wasn’t given a choice of hospitals, she was simply taken to the closest city hospital. Unlike Ms. Gora, Mr. Miele had the means to afford the best care possible; he could afford the best hospital, he could afford the best surgery, and he could afford to follow the best recovery plan. Ms. Gora’s lack of wealth an integral reason why she did not recover from her heart attack in the way the Mr. Miele, and even Mr. Wilson, did.

Health care is not a privilege. In fact, a good level and quality on healthcare should be an inalienable right for all people. Social class, status or economic situation shouldn’t dictate who live and enjoy of good health or who doesn’t. Healthcare in America should be universal, continuous, and affordable to all individuals and families. Although some of the states in the US are taking unilateral measures not to focus exclusively on the poor, but seeks to guarantee health access to any uninsured people, achieving universal coverage will require federal leadership and support, regardless of which strategy is adopted to achieve this

In the field of health care there is a pervasive notion that many blacks are presumed to be low income. It is interesting to see how blackness is associated with low income and class. For example, questions regarding where black patients reside and what their current occupation is can be directly linked to racial profiling in health care. The author contends black patients are more likely to receive a lower quality of health care due to one’s insurance status and income. Here, too, one can maintain that race is deeply interwoven into the construct of class and accessibility (Smedly 2012). As a result, class serves a higher purpose of being granted access to the accessibility of better medical resources and standard of care. Conversely, the construct of class not only gives and takes away in its relation to recieving appropriate resources in

Jackie, the mother of three young children, tries really hard to support her family’s basic health care despite all the challenges she faced. Abraham in the book points out that there is a division of culture in this country where the ethnics lower class gets sicker than middle or high class Caucasians. There are people who get some diseases that are only genetic but with most underclass people, the proper diagnosis and treatment are not always available to them

In the United States, health care is perceived as more of a privilege than a

Widening economic inequality in the United States is being accompanied by increasing health care disparity. While the health care system seeks to provide health care as a human right, it fails to do so often worsening the disparities (Dickman, Himmelstein, & Woolhandler, 2017). While health care today has made major strides, there are many people who are still suffering from health care system injustices. Of the people who are still uninsured a majority of them are in the middle-working class or those living in poverty. Poor Americans have less access to health care than wealthy Americans. The life expectancy gap between the rich and poor continues to widen. Health care in poor communities is too often neglected. This issue has been a trend in the United States for many years. In Abraham’s book, Mama might be better off dead these very same inequalities are evident for the Banes family. Because of these inequalities, preventive illness becomes life threatening causing care to then become extensive and even more expensive.

The Health and Wealth connection distilled is our health will most commonly reflect from our amount of wealth. The wealthy can afford the cost of quality care and the time to take care of themselves. Within the textbook, Dimensions of Human Behavior Hutchison writes. Public health experts have long noted the association of poor clinical outcomes, in all body systems, with low income, low education, unsanitary housing, poor healthcare, on stable employment, and uncertain physical environment (Hutchison, 2015). Easily demonstrated throughout American society the rather dubious and is a somewhat perplexing phenomenon of the Health-and-Wealth connection theory. The gap between the haves and have-nots are ever expanding. Those who have the funding to pay for resources will pay to get those resources. And those who do not have sufficient funds to pay for said resources will, unfortunately, have to stand in the long lines to receive seemingly, deceptively, scarce resources.

Health care in America is a serious issue as it involves families that are unable to receive accessible, affordable and quality medical treatment. Middle class or impoverished families are unable to receive the benefits of health care due to low income levels and a volatile economy. Politicians discuss the reformation of the health care system, but people who are uninsured suffer the consequences of a system that overlooks middle class families in favor of wealthy families, a dominant issue for conflict theorists. Some argue that the health care system is not in need of reform and state that

In the article, Joy Victory discusses how the medical system favors patients who are rich and insured. Victory has written many different articles about current health issues that affect everyone in the

This diagnoses of the flaws in our health care system must start with identifying and redefining the social constructs of America. In most other civilized nations, it is generally accepted that it is in the best interest of the public that every individual be

The promotion of health is vastly switching into exposing what could be America's racist health care system. People have reason to believe that there are different health care for each race, gender, class, and sexuality. In A Conceptual Framework For Understanding Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality, by Lynn Weber, there is a suggestion of power relationships playing a role in different health care. Different health care is dictated by hierarchies determining who gets what kind of health care. Two positions are head-to-head with each other, "There are power hierarchies in which one group exerts control over another, securing its position of dominance in the system, and in which substantial material and nonmaterial resources-such as wealth, income, or access to health care and education-are at stake" (Weber, 20). An example of this is the Flint, Michigan water crisis. Flint, Michigan has pipes that do not produce healthy, nutritious water for residents, but instead gives out lead-poisoned water. The water crisis

The Health and wealth connection distilled is our health will most commonly reflect from our amount of wealth. The wealthy can afford the cost of quality care and the time to take care of them selves. Within the textbook, Dimensions of Human Behavior Hutchison writes. Public health experts have long noted the association of poor health outcomes, in all body systems, with low income, low education, unsanitary housing, in adequate healthcare, on stable employment, and unsafe physical environment (Hutchison, 2015). Easily demonstrated throughout American society the rather dubious and is somewhat perplexing phenomenon of the Health-and-Wealth connection theory. The gap between the haves and have-nots are ever expanding. Those who have the funding to pay for resources will pay to get those resources. And those who do not have adequate funding to pay for said resources will unfortunately have to stand in the long lines to receive seemingly, deceptively, scarce resources.

The issue with health care in the United States is similar to a domino effect. Each sociological factor such as race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and gender all inter twine. This domino effect occurs when one factor connects to another factor in which creates a cycle. This cycle involves inequality, discrimination, and unequal distribution of quality. According to multiple research and scholarly articles, the health care system displays many issues and flaws when it comes to the care and coverage for people depending on their social status.

This essay will be discussing the extent to which social class and poverty affects health and illness. Firstly, what is social class? Each person’s perception of social class can be different; is social class defined by a person’s accent, the area they live in, or something as simple as their income? Project Britain describes social class as “The grouping of people by occupations and lifestyle”. (Cress, 2014). To find social class Sociologists group people according to common factors, they compare people and various criteria can be conveniently used to place people in social groups or classes. Next we ask the question what determines a person’s health, the NHS defines health as “Physical and mental, it is the absence of disease”. (NHS 2017).

Throughout the history of the United States, two things have always afflicted this great nation: inequality and disease. They have always had an effect on each other, as diseases have affected those from lower classes differently from those from upper classes. In our modern U.S. society, we face a specific disease, heart disease, which is now the leading cause of death in the United States and is part of a complex system of social problems (Center for Disease Control).