Healthcare Inequality in the US Health, Medicine, Nursing Essay (Essay Sample)

Healthcare Inequality in the US
Student Name
University
Course
Professor Name
Date
Outline
Introduction
Differences
Access to general healthcare
Access to Specialists
Quality of healthcare facilities
Dissenting voice: Access to Care Act’s success in addressing inequality
Argument Against
* Access to Care Act’s success in addressing inequality
Conclusion
Healthcare Inequality in the US
There has been debate about whether healthcare inequality exists in the US, with some factions arguing that the rich have access to high-quality healthcare than the poor. On the other hand, others say that the US government has formulated various policies, such as the Affordable Healthcare Act, which has reduced this inequality. This essay aims to contribute to this debate and argues that healthcare inequality persists because, unlike poor people, wealthy Americans have insurance cover, access to specialists, and superior healthcare facilities.
Wealthy Americans have access to better healthcare than poor people because they can afford to pay premiums for private insurance, while poor people cannot. As Gaffney and McCormick (2017) established, in “2015 the uninsurance rate among adults aged 18–64 years remained far higher for Hispanics (27•7%) and non-Hispanic blacks (14•4%)” (p. 1445). The high uninsurance rates among poor black people and Hispanics resulted from their inability to pay insurance premiums. As a result, they cannot access healthcare facilities and buy the drugs they need to recover whenever they fall ill. However, even when needy people manage to access healthcare, they get poor quality healthcare because of the low-quality facilities. On the other hand, the rich can pay insurance premiums that give them access to high-quality care in established healthcare facilities. Nevertheless, the poor’s inability to pay for insurance is not the only reason why rich people access better healthcare than them.