Effects of Income Inequality on Quality of Healthcare

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Positive rights are rights that everyone is entitled to including: the right to a public education, access to public roads, and the right to health care. There are no guarantees when it comes to life, but having health insurance makes a huge difference with preventing, diagnosing, and treating diseases. Of course having insurance itself is a great resource to ensure medical care and containing costs, but not all insurance programs are created equal. Insurance programs have caveats, exclusions, varying co-payments, and access to certain doctors and hospitals, which creates an ethical dilemma. Receiving the best care is subjective in most cases, but with money you can buy almost anything, including the best care. Although those living in poverty are given access to healthcare, that does not mean they receive the best or equal care as those who are wealthy. Living in a capitalist society, the richest Americans enjoy larger homes, nicer cars, better education and even health care. Even if we lived in a capitalist society where everyone had access to the same basic healthcare program, the rich would still be able to afford better care. The wealthy are able to pay more in co-payments, prescription costs, and the ability to go outside of the healthcare system in this country to seek help. When you have the disposable resources then the sky is the limit, where the poor have very limited options. They will be confined to their healthcare coverage program and do not have the luxury of seeking additional assistance. “Poor patients often receive less quality care in the hospital, have more barriers to recovery, and experience higher morbidity and mortality than do patients with higher incomes” (Dracup). The United States is ... ... middle of paper ... ...ndards and practices are more uniform based on circumstance and not based on loopholes, exceptions or lack of insurance. Everyone should be given the same preventive care and be able to receive the same treatment options regardless of location, income, or age. Competition in the marketplace can be good, but there are many complexities with healthcare and many people can slip through the cracks and others can be shortchanged. Works Cited C. Wayne Sells and Robert Wm. Blum, "Morbidity and Mortality among US Adolescents: An Overview of Data and Trends," AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH Vol. 86, No. 4 (April, 1996), pgs. 513-519. R. Wilkinson and K. Pickett, The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, Bloomsbury Press, NY, 2009, in particular pages 49- 173. Income Inequalities , Health and the Garrison State by Christopher Schaefer

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