African Americans and Healthcare Essay Example

Black Americans are disproportionately disadvantaged by the United States healthcare system. Many are denied opportunities to access housing, employment, education, and fresh foods - all central to the health of an individual. The deprivation of these fundamental human needs is rooted deep in discriminatory practices and policies, including redlining, segregation in schools, and racial biases in the workplace. These discriminatory practices are embedded into United States institutions, and as a result, significantly affect the health of many Black people in the U.S. In America, Black people are at much greater risk of suffering from chronic illnesses than their white counterparts, with higher rates of asthma, COVID-19, cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, and obesity. Not only is their exposure to chronic diseases substantially larger than that of white people, but their access to quality health care and health insurance is limited.

Black people in the United States are almost twice as likely to be uninsured when compared to white people and are therefore impacted the most by ongoing rises in prescription drug prices. While insured individuals benefit from negotiated plans and drug rebates, uninsured individuals are left facing sizable price tags. The colossal prices of prescription drugs, coupled with systemic racism and racial disparities in the United States healthcare system, result in the under-usage of medications and poorer health outcomes for Black Americans.

Black Americans’ limited access to health insurance, and in turn, limited access to expensive prescription drugs, perpetuates racial inequalities in the United States and puts the health and lives of these  individuals at risk.  Without insurance, life-saving medications are often impossible to afford. Black people in the U.S. are dying at rates far higher than that of white people because they cannot afford their medications, and large pharmaceutical companies only continue to raise their prices, and further accentuate racial injustices in America.

COVID-19 uncovers continuing injustices rooted deep in the United States healthcare system. Black people account for twelve percent of the population but are responsible for fourteen percent of all covid deaths in the U.S. (Artiga 2021). Although COVID-19 has brought light to racial health disparities, it “is just the latest example in a long history of systemic inequities faced by black Americans in the United States”(Sawani and Malcom 2020). Race is not a genetic variation, so racial health disparities cannot be treated as if they are biological. Rather, these health disparities, like those seen in COVID-19, are caused by the social construct of race, which has created a complicated paradox of social prejudices, manifesting themselves in physical ways, like chronic illnesses. 

Asthma, for example, disproportionately affects uninsured Black Americans and exemplifies  racial disparities in the United States healthcare system. Black people are forty  percent more likely to have asthma and die at a rate of more than three times that of white people (Akinbami 2006, 8-10). Much of this is due to the price of inhalers that treat asthma; the average cost taken from the sixteen leading inhaler products is around $375 per inhaler (Marsh 2020). According to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the drug company Mylan increased their prices for Albuterol, a common asthma inhaler, from $11 to $434 in just six  months. That’s more than a 4000% increase (Bitter 2018). Since many Black Americans are uninsured or only have access to lower-quality health insurance, this steep price increase for a life-improving inhaler is unattainable. White people are more easily able to access albuterol inhalers due to their expansive access to health insurance, creating not only a “racial health gap,” but a “chasm wider and deeper than a mass grave” (Roberts 2011). Racial health disparities are only heightened by chronic diseases, like asthma, where Black people are dying and facing serious illness at disproportionate rates.

In addition, obesity rates among Black Americans further illustrate systemic racism and racial health disparities in the U.S. Racist institutions and structures in America have contributed to lack of access to proper health care, including fresh fruits and vegetables. Consequently, Black Americans are 51 percent more likely to be obese than white Americans (Lincoln, Abdou, and Lloyd 2016). Redlining has forced many Black Americans into neighborhoods that have a limited number of grocery stores. Even the neighborhoods that do have stores do not have readily available  affordable, healthy foods. Redlining in the U.S. has resulted in Black people consuming more processed foods and has disproportionately affected obesity rates among people of color. 

Moreover, obesity is often linked to chronic illnesses like hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Because Black individuals in America are more likely to suffer from obesity, their chances of suffering from chronic illnesses also increase. With prescription drug prices being significantly higher in the United States than in other countries, combined with limited access to health insurance for Black Americans, affording prescription drugs is impossible - leading to under-usage of medications and higher death rates for Black people in the U.S.

To combat racial health disparities and the impact that prescription drug prices have on Black Americans, we must attack the root of these issues: systemic racism. We must invest in Black neighborhoods. We must advocate for fair funding in schools. We must demand that district lines be redrawn. We must support medicare for all. We must allow the government to negotiate drug prices. And we must build opportunities for Black Americans. Racial health disparities are a complex issue that have been shaped by centuries of racism toward Black people in the U.S. If we do not battle the racist structure that our country was built upon, we will never experience equity within the healthcare system.