Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Essay Paper
Examine Healthy People 2020 health promotion and disease prevention objectives. Identify a health disparity, research this topic, and discuss how is it being addressed at both the local and national lev
Health Disparity: Healthcare Access and Quality
A health disparity is a discrepancy that is witnesses among different population demographics as a result of differing social determinants of health. As a matter of fact, the inability to access quality healthcare itself is an important social determinant of health according to Powell (2016). The US Department of Health and Human Services (n.d.) in its Healthy People 2030 agenda of health access and quality states that one out of ten Americans do not have healthcare insurance. Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Essay Paper Because the United States is one of the most expensive countries in terms of healthcare services (Sultz & Kroth, 2018), the lack of health insurance means that a person or a family is not able to be referred for proper healthcare services since they will not be having a primary healthcare provider. This situation pertains simply because despite being rich in resources, the US does not have a Universal Healthcare (UHC) Program. This would be a single-payer system in the model of Medicare if it were to be made a reality. The cost of this would be a little bit high but the benefits to the population would be great and far-reaching in terms of a sound public health position (Cai et al., 2020). The closest the US has come to UHC and a healthcare for all policy is the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or ACA 2010. This policy was revolutionary and brought into coverage a whopping 22 million Americans who had not been having health insurance (Kominski et al., 2017). The goal of the Healthy People 2030 Healthcare Access and Quality agenda is to expand access of the population to healthcare services that are of high quality and comprehensive (The US Department of Health and Human Services, n.d.). The purpose of this paper is to discuss access to quality healthcare as a healthcare disparity in the United States.
Healthcare Access as a Disparity
As healthcare in the US is expensive, many people of moderate means and incomes cannot afford proper quality healthcare. This is especially true among the minority populations such as the African Americans and Hispanics. The reason for this is that these communities are disproportionately affected negatively by social determinants of health. For instance, most are poor (low socioeconomic status) and hence have low family incomes. Majority also have low educational achievement and live in deplorable sanitary conditions (Powell, 2016). These factors make them unable to pay for quality healthcare services compared to those Americans who are well of. Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Essay Paper
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Action at the Local Level
At the local or state level, the ACA 2010 had provisions that mandated each state to follow a calendar of implementing particular provisions of the law that would see it guarantee its citizens optimum healthcare coverage. Some of these provisions to be implemented by states included formation of state-based insurance exchanges provision of tax credits to small businesses to assist in purchasing insurance, and enactment of consumer protections amongst others (Kominski et al., 2017). The other form of action at the local level involves advocacy by non-state players and professional organizations for there to be a UHC program through the lobbying of representatives.
Action at the National Level
The biggest action at the national or federal level to ensure equal access to quality healthcare was arguably the signing into law of the ACA 2010 by President Obama in his first term in office. The other particular actions included an increment in the federal share of Medicaid payments, creation of a prevention council at the national level, and the creation of a home visitation program at the national level amongst others.
Conclusion
Access to quality healthcare is a major health disparity in the US. Part of the reason is that healthcare in the US is expensive and there is no Universal Health Care (UHC). A number of actions have been taken and continue to be taken at the local and national levels to address this disparity. The major one was the enactment and signing into law of the ACA 2010 by the Obama-Biden administration.
References
Cai, C., Runte, J., Ostrer, I., Berry, K., Ponce, N., Rodriguez, M., Bertozzi, S., White, J.S., & Kahn, J.G. (2020). Projected costs of single-payer healthcare financing in the United States: A systematic review of economic analyses. PLOS Medicine, 17(1), 1-18. https://doi.og/10.1371/journal.pmed.1003013
Kominski, G.F., Nonzee, N.J. & Sorensen, A. (2017). The Affordable Care Act’s impacts on access to insurance and health care for low-income populations. Annual Review of Public Health, 38. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031816-044555
Powell, D.L. (2016). Social determinants of health: Cultural competence is not enough. Creative Nursing, 24(1), 5-10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1891/1078-4535.22.1.5
Sultz, H.A., & Kroth, P.J. (2018). Sultz and Young’s health care USA: Understanding its organization and delivery, 9th ed. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
US Department of Health and Human Services (n.d.). Healthy People 2030: Healthcare access and quality. https://health.gov/healthypeople/objectives-and-data/browse-objectives/health-care-access-and-quality
