Poor Health Habits Among The United States Should Spend More Money On Preventative Care

According to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services (Kassandra, A., 2015), the issue of health disparities have impacted many people’s lives in the community where the minority groups do not have equal access to the quality health care. These

Being a minority in the United States has and will possibly always been a struggle. With the economy being in shams and minimum wage becoming career, minorities have multiple issues that society is unaware especially in health care. A large percent of minorities are the majority of workers of America, in which requires the most of the health care distribution. But are they receiving the proper access to health care and prescription access based on their ethnicity/race? Discrimination and racism continue to be a part of the unbalancing inequality in society and have adversely affected minority populations, and the health care system in general. Analyzing some of the racial disparities in health care among Americans are modifications in both need and access. Minorities are most likely to need health care but are less likely to receive health care services, including proper drug access.

Barriers in health care can lead to disparities in meeting health needs and receiving appropriate care, including preventive services and the prevention of unnecessary hospitalizations (HealthyPeople.gov, 2012). In their 2008 annual report, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality lists several disparities’ in health care. They report that racial and ethnic minorities in the United States

Healthy People 2020 discusses a number of special population’s that have barriers to care including; race, age sex, sexual identity, age, disability, socioeconomic, and location; this post will discuss race (ethnic) group.  There are a number of races mentioned in healthy people 2020, such as, Asian, American Indian, Alaskan, Latino and African American (Healthy People 2020, n.d.). Access to health care in an ethnic group is multifaceted from the lack of trust, lack of health care education, discrimination and cost of care including health insurance. According to Howard, Peace, & Howard (2014), African Americans have a greater risk of three preventable diseases, hypertension, renal failure and bacterial infections stating; “no other disease

In an article written by oncologist Lacie Glover, her concern was about the rising cost of cancer treatment, newly approved cancer drug costs of an average of $10,000 per month, and therapy costs averaging $30,000 per month. A patient typically pays 20-30% out of pocket for drugs. Therefore, the year’s average cost of new cancer medications would $26,000-$36,000, in addition to their health insurance premiums. If you wonder why insurance premiums are constantly on the rise, reflecting on the illnesses and costs to treat them.

Although most American citizens today associate racial and ethnic disparities in public health care quality with socioeconomic status, a majority of studies performed conclude that these discrepancies are still highly prevalent when the factor of one’s socioeconomic status is taken out of the equation. Health disparities for a certain minority result in a higher number of illness, injury, and even mortality for that race or ethnicity in comparison to white Americans; therefore, health care disparities can be defined as differences between groups in health coverage, specifically focusing on both the quality and access to care. The Office of Management and Budget has created two ethnic categories for all American citizens to fit into, being either

There is broad evidence that Americans often do not get the care they need even though the United States spends more money per person on health care than any other nation in the world. Preventive care is underutilized, resulting in higher spending on complex, advanced diseases. Patients with chronic diseases such as hypertension, heart disease, and diabetes all too often do not receive proven and effective treatments such as drug therapies or self management services to help them more effectively manage their conditions.

The United States is a melting pot of cultural diversity. For a country that was founded by individuals fleeing persecution, it has taken us many years to grant African-Americans equal rights, and even longer for those rights to be recognized. Despite all the effort to eliminate inequality in this country, health disparity among this minority group remains a significant issue. Research in this area has pointed to several key reasons for this gap that center on differences in culture, socioeconomics, and lack of health literacy.

Medical researcher, Dr. Leonard Egede, wrote "Race, Ethnicity, culture and disparities in healthcare," published in June of 2006 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. He explains that patients of minority ethnicity experience greater morbidity and mortality from different chronic diseases than non- minorities. In his article, minority patients are more vulnerable populations and include groups that do not receive health care services. According to Dr. Egede, the Institution of Medicine (IOM) racial and ethnic disparities still exist in health care, since they are connected with worse outcomes in many cases, are not acceptable. Also, IOM reports that there are some interesting views in regard to comprehending and recognizing the sources of disparities, assisting factors, planning and measuring effective interventions to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health care. The role of IOM is significant because it provides suggestions and directs the importance of data collection that impacts

One of the goals of Healthy People 2020 is to increase access to health care, specifically through reducing “the proportion of persons who are unable to obtain or delay in obtaining necessary medical care” (Healthy People 2020) from 4.7 percent to 4.2 percent. The Center for Medicare Advocacy, and the California Health Policy Forum, have both identified race and ethnicity as key components of healthcare disparity. Defined as “a difference in which disadvantaged social groups such as the poor, racial/ethnic minorities, women and other groups who have persistently experienced social disadvantage or discrimination systematically experience worse health or greater health risks than more advantaged social groups,” (Center for Medicare Advocacy) policies to protect this population are non-specific.

Patients with cancer are considered high cost users because of their rising healthcare costs (Wodchis, 6). It is unavoidable to get through cancer with at a low cost. A recent study showed that even when the procedure was given at no charge, a patient still spent an average of $432.44 for one procedure. That includes preparing for, traveling to, having the procedure, and recovering from the procedure for both the patient and the caregiver. If the patient has kids and there isn’t a stay at home parent, then the couple either has to pay for a babysitter or the spouse loses money staying home with the child while the patient attends his or her doctor appointments. According to Lacie Glover, “Hospital and outpatient facilities account for 54% of costs, and physician fees account for 22 percent” (2). According to several different health cancer-related organizations, 67% of total costs of cancer treatments are non-medica(10 Statistics,1)l. It is so sad to know that patients are spending so much more money to go see the doctor than they are paying to get something that will help them feel

There is a big problem in the United States when it comes to money being spent on preventable diseases. Why is this the case? Here are a few ideas. For one, America has become a place where everything is immediate. People are able to get food, music, information, and more in little to no time, and now this is what Americans want for their health problems as well. Instead of people taking care of themselves in order to prevent disease, they wait until they are sick and go to the doctor for instant gratification or a “quick fix”, like a pill. This leads to another point; Americans are becoming lazy. People do not want to take their health seriously, and end up causing more problems for themselves, and the country, in the long run. Finally, this

Changes in access to health care across different populations are the chief reason for current disparities in health care provision. These changes occur for several reasons, and some of the main factors that contribute to the problem in the United States are: Lack of health insurance – Several racial, ethnic, socioeconomic and other minority groups lack adequate health insurance coverage in comparison with people who can afford healthcare insurance. The majority of these individuals are likely to put off health care or go without the necessary healthcare and medication that is needed. Lack of financial resources – Lack of accessibility to funding is a barrier to health care for a lot of people living in the United States

As one can see the price for one single child with cancer treatment that needs necessary care over multiple nights can be, on average, up to 6 figures in the United States (oeconline 2). Statistically, the national cost per child is about equivalent to $815,830 in 2007 dollars (oeconline 1). The average per day costs for pediatric cancer has increased consistently from 2000 to 2005 by over twenty percent, figuratively that is from $14,400 to $17,500 (Nagamine 2). Although the prices are already substantially high they are apparently still on the rise (Nagamine 2).

Preventive care has always been a very important factor in the health care system. It has allowed for illness to stop further spreading and a lot of times to be controlled before they been start. The definition of Preventive care is ultimately the “Actions taken to avoid contracting a medical condition” (Makely, 2017, Pg. 7). Prevention has basically helped better the health of the overall nation while helping also reduce the cost of healthcare. Throughout the years it has evolved more and has really become and asset to the health care services offered to patients. The United States as well as other countries now see how important it is to actually try and prevent illness before they even start and become a bigger issue to the nation. Due to the importance that The United States and other countries see in preventive care they have focused more on the funding that goes to preventive care, even though their can never really be enough attention that goes to preventive care.