On paper, the state of healthcare in this country—and even in the world—is phenomenal. We have access to more medicine, with better cures, treatments, and prevention strategies for almost every conceivable illness or injury, especially when compared to decades past. Life expectancy is at an all-time high, and despite some relatively new and persistent problems (e.g., obesity), we’re all living healthier lives. What’s even better is that this momentum shows no signs of stopping, as technologies continue to get more and more advanced.
The Inequality Problem
However, this upward trajectory doesn’t hold the same for everyone, especially in developed countries. In Australia, for example, the richest 20 percent of the population can expect to live about 6 years longer than the poorest 20 percent, and this trend follows in the United States. It’s 2016, and we’re supposed to be living in an age where class doesn’t exist, and in a country with some of the greatest resources in the world. To make matters even worse, the inequality isn’t just limited to income levels, but also to gender and age; as you might imagine, the younger you are, the more money you make, and the closer you are to being a white male in gender or ethnicity, the better access to healthcare you’ll receive.
So why is this?
Reasons for Inequality
Let’s take a look at the major motivating factors for this enormous rift:
- A lack of quality free programs. There are various free or inexpensive healthcare programs throughout the United States, ranging from STD screenings to influenza shots. However, there’s a shocking lack of availability for lower-income and struggling families. To make matters worse, many of these programs are lacking in quality; for example, many free STD clinics have strict requirements for incoming patients, obtrusive circumstances to receive a screening, and questionable to unreliable practices, forcing many to pursue paid options or forgo the opportunity altogether.
- Profiteering in biotechnology and medical industries. Another problem is the escalation of medical costs, which is at least partially attributable to profiteering in the biotechnology industry, such as egregious markups for patented prescription drugs for no other reason than to increase personal profits for a select few. These practices make healthcare even less affordable for those in dire economic straits, and reserve the latest medical technological breakthroughs for only the upper echelon of society.
- Unsatisfactory health education. Information is the greatest resource we have in mitigating the prominence of various diseases, from STDs to metabolic syndrome, and unfortunately, our education system doesn’t provide equal opportunities to everyone. Wealthy areas tend to attract better education programs, which prime children to adopt better health habits and preventative measures, while poorer areas tend to suffer from lower educational standards and higher dropout rates, leading to greater ignorance about the importance of health.
- Differences in working conditions. Part of the problem for health differences in economic classes is a simple matter of working conditions. Lower-paying jobs tend to be more physically demanding, putting employees at a higher risk of physical injuries, chronic injuries and conditions, and straight-up unhealthy conditions. Higher-paying jobs tend to be clean and peaceful, with ergonomic furniture mitigating health risks—not to mention, they come with better health insurance packages. This leads to a dramatic rift over time.
- Self-perpetuation. All of these problems are made worse by a factor of self-perpetuation. Because lower-income workers have poor access and higher needs for healthcare, they end up paying more, leaving them unable to afford better education programs for their children, who in turn grow up in the same situations. Meanwhile, the wealthy classes continue to grow wealthier, with the accumulation of advantage taking its course over multiple generations.
What Can We Do?
Some of the reasons listed above are easier to solve than others, with some being almost impossible to solve cheaply or quickly. For starters, better access to free education and free healthcare resources could provide a “duct tape” fix that would give lower-income families better medical support.
Over the course of a few generations, this could help fix the self-perpetuation problem. Differences in working conditions are unlikely to go away anytime soon, no matter what we do, but we could also accelerate the mitigation of this problem by adopting stricter regulations for prices and profits in the medical industry.
In any case, health inequality continues to be a major and complicated problem in the United States. The first step to truly solving it is simply raising awareness, which in turn will raise demand for the programs and incentives we need to improve our system and get everyone in our country the healthcare they deserve.