The Healthcare Crisis Faced by African Americans Essays

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.

In doing so, he pays particularly close attention to black patients and their relations with health care policies and practices. Smedly maintains that blacks are not only the victims of, inpatient and outpatient treatment, racial policies, and other services but also the victims of its consequences. He argues that many health care administrators are agents to a system of inequality that support provider and administrator biases, geographical inequalities, and racial stereotypes (Smedly 2012).

Health care spending in the United States of America as a percentage of the economy has reached astonishing heights, equating to 17.7 percent. This number is shocking when compared to other counties; in Australia health care is 8.9 percent, in United Kingdom 9.4 percent, in Canada 11.2 percent. If the American health care system were to hypothetically become its own economy, it would be the fifth-largest in the world. While these statistics sound troubling, they lead us to look for answers about the problems surrounding our system. The first health insurance company was created in the 1930s to give all American families an equal opportunity for hospital care and eventually led to a nationwide economic and social controversy that erupted in the 1990s and continued to be shaped by the government, insurance companies, doctors, and American citizens. In this paper, I will go in to detail about the various opinions regarding the controversy, the history behind health insurance companies, and the main dilemmas brought out by the health care crisis. Greedy insurance companies combined with high costs of doctor visits and pharmaceutical drugs or the inefficient hospitals all over America can only describe the beginning to this in depth crisis. Recently, the United States health care industry has become know for the outrageous costs of insurance models, developments of various social and health services programs, and the frequent changes in medicinal technology.

The U.S. health care system faces challenges that indicate that the people urgently need to be reform. Attention has rightly focused on the approximately 46 million Americans who are uninsured, and on the many insured Americans who face rapid increases in premiums and out-of-pocket costs. As Congress and the Obama administration consider ways to invest new funds to reduce the number of Americans without insurance coverage, we must simultaneously address shortfalls in the quality and efficiency of care that lead to higher costs and to poor health outcomes. To do otherwise casts doubt on the feasibility and sustainability of coverage expansions and also ensures that our current health care system will continue to have large gaps even for those with access to insurance coverage.

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.

     The article on Black America Web entitled “The state of Black America, Part 4: Health as Wealth” (Lewis, 17 Jan. 05) is mainly addressing how African Americans should get check-ups, eat a healthier diet, exercise, among other things to maintain their health. The authors main point of writing an article about health is so that African Americans will be propelled to take preventative measures to prevent and treat disease that may be debilitating or lethal, to get professional help if they are not feeling mentally prepared, and to put aside mistrust of the medical profession.

Today, one of the leading problems discussed in politics is healthcare. America constantly struggles with their healthcare system to make it affordable and accessible to communities. In the twentieth century this same problem also existed, creating one of the most well-known African American activist groups in America. In the book Body and Soul by Alondra Nelson, it discusses the social inequalities of the healthcare system in America and how the Black Panther Party fought against medical discrimination for African Americans. Nelson talks about how the Black Panther Party went from the role of protecting black citizens to a larger political role in African American health care. The significance of this book applies to medical sociology in many ways and is essential to the understanding of providing better healthcare to future generations. In the following book review, it includes a summary of each chapter to highlight the main points, some of the very many medical sociology concepts that could be applied, and lastly an evaluation of the book as a whole and its significance to our course.

Conclusively, low socioeconomic disparities, lack of proper access to health care services, grievous historical medical experiences, lack of awareness along with distrust are some of the leading setbacks within the Black American sectors relationship with the health care system. Thereupon, it is in the hands of the medical community and the hands of the vulnerable population to gain a common ground for productive trust. Hopefully, through new studies, with the reduction of distrust towards the health care system, the Black American can assuredly facilitate services to accessing health care and a developed foundation of trust from the health care

Every individual in the world deserves to enjoy health and wellness. Maintaining or achieving proper health needs enables individuals to be productive at work and leisure. Traditionally, many people have had barriers obtaining adequate healthcare due to economic constraints or personal inconveniences. Despite impressive technological advances in medicine, the challenge of delivering quality healthcare to the Americans continues to be debated amongst the nation’s political and healthcare leaders. The aging baby-boomers and the increased number of uninsured people add to the equation of population growth which results in limited access to primary healthcare for the entire public. On the

Universal Health care has been the topic of discussion among politicians and Americans today and has shown zero signs of slowing down in the future. The United States is considered one of the very few countries that spends an extensive amount of money on healthcare yet people are still struggling to receive care that’s needed and dying at a alarming rate due to the fact that they cannot afford insurance coverage for themselves and their families. In March of 2010 President Barack Obama implemented the Affordable Care Act, providing millions of Americans who previously did not have health insurance the ability to acquire and purchase premiums, however there are still some serous issues surrounding its implementation.” While the president

Our healthcare system needs major restructuring. Major improvements needs to begin with "all health care organizations, professional groups, and private and public purchasers should adopt as their explicit purpose to continually reduce the burden of illness, injury, and disability, and to improve the health and functioning of the people of the United States", (Crossing the ……, 2001).

There are many reasons to question the goodness of Obama’s proposed health care bill. However, by looking at the bill closed-minded, the true potential is never seen. Of course continuing with the current United States health care system is always an option, but without reforming the system, expecting to see higher costs is inevitable. One thing that Americans need to strive for is making health care more affordable, which is the key to making the United States health care system sustainable once again (Mango & Riefberg). Currently, The United States health care system is the world’s largest, but it is also the most expensive.

The proposed health care reform bill attempts to change issues of public policy and health care management for the poor and uninsured. Many leaders from the Democratic Party are actively engaging in policy-making to fix what Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California) calls a “‘dysfunctional’ health care system” (2009). Currently, the U.S. health care system denies people with pre-existing conditions from receiving care. Another problem with the system is that the health insurance that some employers offer may be so expensive that their employees cannot afford it. Any cuts in Medicaid may mean that physicians have fewer incentives to provide adequate care for the poor. These are some of the many problems that the Affordable Health Choices Act attempts to address. Fiscally conservative political and business groups oppose this measure because they believe that any changes in public policy and health care management might affect them negatively.

Currently, the issue of health insurance has been a bone of contention for the public regarding whether the United States government should provide this health plan or not. People often possess different perspectives and refer to pros and cons on both sides of the spectrum. While some believes a universal healthcare system will set a foundation for a lower quality of service, increasing governmental finance deficit, and higher taxes, others do not hold the same thought. A universal healthcare system brings enormous advantages rather than disadvantages, such as all-inclusive population coverage, convenient accessibility, low time cost, and affordable medical cost, all of which not only provide minimum insurance to the disadvantaged but also improve the efficiency of medical resources distribution.

US health care expenditures have been rising quickly over the past few years; it has risen more than the national financial system. Nonetheless a number of citizens in the US still lack appropriate health care. If the truth be told, health care expenditures are going to continue to increase; in addition numerous individuals will possibly have to make difficult choices pertaining to their health care. Our health system has grave problems that require reform, through reforming, there is optimism that there will be an increase in affordable health care and high-quality of care for America. Medicaid, Medicare and private sector insurances are all going through trials and tribulations because of