Over the years, while disparity in healthcare remains a pertinent tissue within the healthcare system in America, and more particularly along racial lines, there has been little effort to develop evidence to unearth this reality. While the issue has been significantly explored and documented, there are no specific cases or solutions as to how these disparities can be managed and the disparity gaps closed (Byrd, Michael and Linda, Clayton, 171). Apparently, this is due to the general and historical perception that the disparity will gradually close down and a time, infinite time, will come when disparity in the sector will be an issue of the past. The black community is the most affected and documented in this perspective and this is mainly due to the slavery ideals that have been carried over time and that have entrenched the element of slaveocracy within the leadership, workforce and population (Byrd, Michael and Linda Clayton, 168).
There are historical instances that can be sited and such an example is the efforts to define the blacks as the inferior gene and their exploitation in research. A typical example is the story of Henrietta Lacks whose case of cervical cancer became the source of the HeLa cell line despite the fact that she was being exploited because of her low social status. The only benefit to the disadvantaged groups in this case is the motion that they would also become beneficiaries of the invention (Bediako, Shawn and Derek, 5). There has been a continuum of sort that has helped to retain this disparity with specific instances when legislations have been formulated to help address these disparities and followed up by vigorous campaign to defeat the same bills before they see the floor of the legislative houses. This has led to a situation where we currently have a group or population that has continually been underfunded medically, and is subjected to an overcrowded and inferior health care sector accessible to its public.
The development of racial myths that emphasized on inferiority of some races as well as the systematic set up of segregated healthcare subsystem for these blacks and the poor disadvantaged groups was propelled by the physician leadership that has dominated the system. There are three levels on which health disparities and the Americans dilemma has occurred and persisted. On one hand is the differences in social, economic, political and environmental availability and exposure to resources that facilitate health living and wellness (Byrd, Michael and Linda Clayton, 170). This has led to a situation where there are visible parallel differences in the occurrence of disease incidences. Apparently with the underfunded and overcrowded subsystem of healthcare that the blacks and the disadvantaged groups have been subjected historically, the cases of disease incidences ate still visible in the contemporary systems with significant disparities in acute and chronic illnesses including those that are preventable.
Secondly, the variations in access to mental and physical care which includes the curative and preventive services has meant that even in the occurrence of diseases and illnesses, these groups have to struggle to seek medication or even so forego the idea. When access to healthcare services is limited and the population is growing at a fairly rapid rate, the incidences of diseases tend to increase within the same or even higher magnitude than the population increase. There comes a time when the control mechanisms set out which in most cases are temporary and unsustainable cannot manage or help reduce these incidences due to the gradually pile up of cases of illness and the continued decline in the health status of the population (Byrd, Michael and Linda Clayton, 179).
Thirdly, the apparent differences in the quality of care provided to these grouse in both preventive and curative care services has played a key role in maintaining the rates of prevalence of illnesses. This has specifically been achieved through a strategic designing of subsystems that are underfunded and understaffed and whose sustainability is placed in suspense. These issues all intertwine at the point where these trends have been maintained and are currently manifesting within the current healthcare system. A particular example is the adoption of the Affordable Care Act which had been seen as a formidable law that would help address a significant portion of these disparities especially those that tough on socioeconomic status of populations and access to quality care (Aronson, Joshua, et al., 54).
The Medicare plan was designed to impact on the less disadvantaged groups; the poor, the elderly, those with disabilities and those that have remained historically segregated. The sophistication of eligibility and access to these services is an issue that has limited the usefulness of the Medicare services. This is coupled with the limited nature of services that can be available to these groups. Medicare has only been designed to provide the basic services and placing a demand that the much needed services such as medication and access to long term care can only be possible when the eligible persons subscribe to the more costly healthcare insurance plans. Apparently, these are the services most important to these groups and these are the ones that have been systematically eliminated in the Medicare by increasing costs. For a society that has remained sidelined historically, and with the will to close the disparity gaps, the importance of affirmative action cannot be over emphasized but this still seems a blurred ideology whose time has not yet come (Ford, Chandra and Collins, Airhihenbuwa, S34).
Despite these issues, and the existing disparities, there is a formula for correction. However, this begins with admission that these disparities are real, existing and there is a need for them to be managed. However, the solution is a multifaceted approach to minimize the gaps along which these disparities have manifested. On one hand is the need to restructure the healthcare system. The subsystems of the past that have been set put for these disadvantaged groups need be phased out and replaced with new systems that reflect a willingness for change (Ford, Chandra and Collins, Airhihenbuwa, S32). This implies developing new institutions that are adequately funded and that are regarded in equal measure as those in the more developed areas or those that serve other groups. Secondly, there is a need to improve the cultural response by which the healthcare system views these disadvantaged communities (Aronson, Joshua, et al., 51)
On one hand, racial and ethnic integration in the workforce and personnel in the institutions that serve these groups would help erode the perceptions of inferiority and gain the trust of these groups with the healthcare system. The ability to view the healthcare system from the ‘self’ or from a perspective of people they can associate with serving them would endear them to shun the behaviors of foregoing care due to long held perceptions of a discriminate system. On the other hand, the need to subsidize the care cost for these groups considering their historical economic status and the apparent poverty rates within these groups would also play a key role in the resolving the current menace of disparity (Like, 203).
Further, the focus on preventive care services and the improvement of the social status of these groups would play a big role in changing the trends as they exist now. Increased access to education, increased employment opportunities, better housing as well as focus on detailed research that not only seeks to identify disparities but to resolve them (Like, 198). the costs of these solutions is high and this is not a justification to forego them anyway because it is an issue of justice that has long been deferred and whose interest has been accumulating and now it is the high time that the healthcare system pays back to the community in human terms (Byrd, Michael and Linda Clayton, 189).
Works cited
Aronson, Joshua, et al. "Unhealthy interactions: The role of stereotype threat in health disparities." American journal of public health 103.1 (2013): 50-56.
Bediako, Shawn M., and Derek M. Griffith. "Eliminating racial/ethnic health disparities: Reconsidering comparative approaches." Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice 2.1 (2012): 5.
Byrd, W. Michael, and Linda A. Clayton. An American health dilemma: Race, medicine, and health care in the United States 1900-2000. Vol. 2. Routledge, 2015.
Ford, Chandra L., and Collins O. Airhihenbuwa. "Critical race theory, race equity, and public health: toward antiracism praxis." American Journal of Public Health 100.S1 (2010): S30-S35.
Like, Robert C. "Educating clinicians about cultural competence and disparities in health and health care." Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions 31.3 (2011): 196-206.
