US surpasses most of the world in health care inequality
By
Kate Randall
9 June 2017
Being poor in America is a clear predictor that the health care you receive will be far inferior to that of your wealthy counterparts. This reality, documented in a new study published in Health Affairs, will come as no surprise to workers and the poor who struggle daily to gain access to health care and pay for it.
At the other end of the income spectrum, the superior health care received by the super-rich directly correlates to their ability to pay out-of-pocket for the best care that money can buy.
The new study, “The United States Leads Other Nations in Differences by Income in Perceptions of Health and Health Care,” examines self-assessments of personal health and health care among income groups in the period of 2011-13 across 32 middle- and high-income countries.
The study period does not take into account the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), in particular its expansion of Medicaid, the insurance program for the poor. However, contrary to the claims of the Democratic Party, Obamacare has not led to an increase in the quality of health care for most Americas, and in many cases has reduced quality and increased costs. The Trump administration is now escalating the attack on health care, with plans to cut $1.4 trillion over 10 years from Medicaid.
The US has among the largest income-related inequities in health care among rich and middle-income countries studied. Over half of those polled felt that income-based health care inequalities were unfair; those among this group were also significantly more likely than others to support major health system reform.
