What are the specific financial, social, cultural, and other issues mentioned in the article that are impediments or barriers to Ms.Kaur receiving the care she needs for her eye condition?
Primarily Ms Kaur is denied treatment due to the fact that she is an immigrant and comes from India with her earnings level above that of Medicaid putting her in a complete quandary which is grossly unfair. The American healthcare system with all its complexities is also a huge barrier to Ms Kaur’s eventual treatment as she suffers substantially from discrimination even though her earnings are higher than the poverty level prescribed for Medicaid.
The high prices for treatment at private eye clinics are also issue and through these, Ms Kaur is left out in the cold several times apart from the fact that she has run up considerable debts to pay these medical bills. Other impediments include the fact that she has to work for considerably long hours to make ends meet and even has to skip dosages to make her money stretch further.
Issues are also raised due to the fact that Ms Kaur is a devout Hindu and this also means that her religion impedes her on taking certain steps to improve her eye condition especially regarding her diet. But the principle root cause of her problem is the fact that she is consistently having to skip treatment due to financial considerations and this results in her problem getting much worse leading to a spiral of ever greater costs and the eventual debt which goes with it.
In your opinion, what could the health care providers, medical professionals, and the health system in New York have done to help Ms. Kaur with her situation?
Health care providers in this case appear to be interested only in profit and to milk Ms Kauer’s unfortunate situation as much as they can. Primarily it appears that they are only interested whether Ms Kauer has Medicaid so that they can collect the costs of the eye treatment as quickly as possible. However they fail Ms Kauer the most when they know that the woman cannot possibly afford certain treatments but this is eventually suggested to her leaving her run up an ever increasing mountain of debt.
The health system in New York as in most other states appears to be skewed against the poor and those who cannot afford it especially with regard to Medicaid. It is also skewed against single persons who have to earn a very low amount of income to qualify for Medicaid but the costs for private healthcare are relatively astronomical in this respect. We observe how Ms Kaur continually runs up considerable bills which she is unable to pay and her eye problems consistently get worse without any hope in sight.
Although one understands that healthcare costs have been ratched up in recent years, the torment that Ms kaur has to go through is unforgivable. The whole healthcare system is a travesty of justice and includes several pitfalls which land people who have no hope into a legal minefield of bills and treatments with no real end in sight. The law should be adjusted to ensure that a more realistic threshold for Medicaid is maintained and this should include those who earn more than US 15,000 a year as this income is barely enough to live on as it is not even considering extra healthcare costs.
