Racism In Health Care Essay

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Healthcare is more than just the care that you receive in a hospital. Poverty, lack of employment, and lack of housing all fall into that category. And all racial bias can and does take part in these implements of health. It seems people are hesitant to claim that there is healthcare discrimination. Some of the leading causes of death include heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, kidney disease, homicide, hypertension, and liver cirrhosis; African Americans have higher death rates than whites in all of these categories. (Williams, D.R. & Mohammed, S.A. J Behav Med (2009) 32: 20. doi:10.1007/s10865-008-9185-0) Medical advances have made it possible for people to live longer and healthier than ever, yet these numbers still exists. In this essay, I argue that the …show more content…
in many ways, in healthcare blacks have been regulated and separated to different hospitals, so even denied care completely. Lyndon B. Johnson brought upon 2 programs called Medicaid and Medicare. These programs vastly improved access to hospital care for racial and ethnic minority Americans on Medicare. “They led to significant improvements in access to care for minority patients, improvements in the quality of care provided to minority patients, and greater diversity among the providers serving them.”(James 2015) The elderly and the poor of all races saw improvement in healthcare access. Despite such an improvement, there is still a fight for racial justice in the healthcare system. As of 2010 black males had a life expectancy 5 years less than white males and 3 years less of females. (Das, Gaffeny, 2015) This brings the term “White Privilege” to mind, which is defined as, “ A right, advantage of immunity granted to or enjoyed by white persons beyond the common advantage of all others; an exemption in many particular cases from certain burdens or liabilities. (Kendall Clark) Imagine how many deaths could have been prevented if minorite received that same care as

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