Socioeconomic Status

There are many factors that contribute to the current health status of Black Americans, but “Poverty may be the most profound and pervasive determinant of health status” (Edelman & Mandle, 2010, p. 39). Health care is expensive and can only be purchased by those who can afford to pay, so those below the poverty level are those who lack insurance. Without insurance their access to healthcare is limited, especially preventative care. No preventative care means more expensive care that comes with illness.

The health of a nation plays an integral part in the overall success and economic well being of a particular country. The United Stated, while pouring more money into the healthcare system than any other country, still stands as a broken system with inadequate care for many citizens. One of the most marginalized groups of people, African American women, continually score alarmingly low on basic measures of overall health. The healthcare discrepancies between white and black women in the United States are alarming, and they reveal flaws in the American health care system as a whole.

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.

. Addressing health inequalities and health care is not only important from the point of view of social justice, but also to improving the health of all Americans by improving the quality of care and health of their children. People. Moreover, the difference in health is expensive. An analysis estimates that about 30% of total direct medical expenses for blacks, Hispanics and Asians are excessive costs due to inequalities in health. The difference also leads to economic losses due to indirect costs related to loss of productivity and premature mortality. (Artiga,

Health disparities endure tenacious issues in the United States of America, setting certain groups at higher risk of being uninsured, limited access to care, facing a poorer quality of care, and overall negative health outcomes. The high incidence of health disparities reflects the range of individual, social, economic, racial/ethnic and environmental magnitudes. Among the minority groups, African-Americans disproportionately access health care and the health disparities clearly glow in the nationwide.

Socioeconomic status is a health disparity in the United States. In 2012, McHenry concluded that there are approximately 84,000 preventable deaths that occur each year. Although the ACA has provided accessible health care to many people that would otherwise not be able to afford health insurance there still is a large population uninsured (Brown & Divenere, 2017). African Americans have a high prevalence of

Although the United States is a leader in healthcare innovation and spends more money on health care than any other industrialized nation, not all people in the United State benefit equally from this progress as a health care disparity exists between racial and ethnic minorities and white Americans. Health care disparity is defined as “a particular type of health difference that is closely linked with social or economic disadvantage…adversely affecting groups of people who have systematically experienced greater social and/or economic obstacles to health and/or clean environment based on their racial or ethnic group; religion; socioeconomic status; gender; age; mental health; cognitive, sensory or physical disability; sexual orientation or gender identity; geographic location; or other characteristics historically linked to discrimination or exclusion” (National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities [NPAEHD], 2011, p. 3). Overwhelming evidence shows that racial and ethnic minorities receive inferior quality health care compared to white Americans, and multiple factors contribute to these disparities, including geography, lack of access to adequate health coverage, communication difficulties between patients and providers, cultural barriers, and lack of access to providers (American College of Physicians,

The disparities are around us every day and unless we educate ourselves and our communities these disparities will continue to wreak havoc on our neighborhoods and in the future, we will just be putting our kids and their kids in a continuing cycle of ignorance when we could have done more if it’s just educating the community we leave in, that alone could be enough to turn the tides in our people favor. In turn, I would hope this paper enlighten you on what is going on in our neighborhood and what we can do to correct this issue to preserve our autonomy. Racial and ethnic health disparities undermine what a healthcare system should stand for. Although the top three causes and seven of the 10 leading causes of death are the same for African Americans and whites, the risk factors and incidence, morbidity, and mortality rates for these diseases and injuries often are greater among blacks than whites (MMWR, 2005). Health disparities refer to differences in disease risks, incidence, morbidity, and mortality but most of all for the sake of this paper unequal access to quality health insurance amongst African American in the United States, which will also go hand and hand with the social and economic disadvantages. The disadvantages of health disparities usually affect people of African American descent who have systemically experienced a greater social and economic obstacle to health care.

Health disparities among African-Americans is a continuing problem that has been seen over many years. African-Americans have higher poverty rates, have lower rates of insurance coverage, and are more likely to be covered by Medicaid, than the White population (Copeland, 2005). This lack of insurance has led many of these individuals, to not seek treatment for illness, due to problem accessing health care (Kennedy, 2013). This leaves African-Americans with little to no treatment, which causes an increase of medical care that will be needed further on in their life or a sooner than expected death, caused by illness (Copeland, 2005).

Health disparities amongst African-Americans continue to destabilize not just the various communities but the health care system as a whole. Minority groups especially African-Americans are more probable to agonize from certain health illnesses, have higher mortality rates and lower life expectancy than another other race in the nation. Health disparities are complex and incorporate lifestyle choices, socioeconomic factors such as income, education and employment and access to care services. For the elimination of health disparities within the African-American community, there requires a need for equivalent access to health care and cultural suitable health ingenuities.

For decades, a person’s socioeconomic status or SES has affected the healthcare that people receive due to race and “wealth”. This problem has plagued American society because of these factors leading to many receiving inadequate healthcare. All of these factors for someone’s SES has changed a lot in the healthcare domain that is unfair to many who are not the “ideal”. Due to this the perception, experiences with healthcare waver and are different between the stages of these SES’s. No matter the status of a person they should receive the same amount of care, treatment, and closer.

When it comes to healthcare racial disparities continue to be an ongoing issue. In fact racial disparities have been a topic of discussion since desegregation. The US Department of Health and Human Services, in 1984 published a report that called attention to the healthcare disparities. The report was called Heath, United States 1983(Dougher, 2015). Within the context of the report there lies a passage that describes the major disparities that are within the burden of illness and death that is experienced by African Americans and other minorities, “despite significant progress in the overall health of the nation” (Dougher, 2015). It was evident that there was a serious lack of health care minorities.

One’s socioeconomic status within a society affects that individual’s health. (CDC, 2013). The challenges faced by these African Americans is not just limited to accessing healthcare services but it may also involve the complete lack of health insurance coverage for example, in 2013, before the expansion of the major health care insurance coverage as required by the affordable Care Act(ACA) (Hayes, S.L, Riley, P., Radley, D.C., & McCarthy, D, 2015), more than one in five African American/blacks between the ages of 18 to 64 years (22%) and one in three Hispanics did not have healthcare insurance coverage.( Hayes, S.L, Riley, P., Radley, D.C., & McCarthy, D , 2015). The aforementioned data which demonstrates that many African American do not have healthcare insurance coverage with the difficulty encountered by some of these individuals that may even have healthcare insurance in accessing certain services, reinforces the necessity of a mechanism such as the patient navigation tool to assist those inviduals get the best out of the healthcare system.

“Liberty and Justice for all”. This phrase means to most that being an American citizen will grant you the benefits of freedom and fair treatment from everyone. Some may argue whether or not this holds true, however, the United States truly has come a long way from an equality standpoint since its inception. Liberty and Justice was not always for all. Minorities in particular, did not share any of the benefits of being in the land of the free and brave; does this still hold true today when it comes to the availability of heath care? Going to the doctor for a simple checkup and prescription should be considered a normal and affordable part of life. Being medically insured allows this to be done with ease, but for the large percentage of the minority population who are not, it can be a daunting task. Those who end up getting medical care without the proper insurance can rack up debt that becomes impossible to pay off. According to a study done by Wiltshire, Elder, Elder, Kiefe, and Allison (2016), 21.4% of African Americans had some form of medical debt with their Caucasian counterparts only having seven point one percent. This paper examines who is affected most by medical debt and lack of insurance, how geographical differences influence those individuals, and what is being done to make health care more affordable.

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