How Do Healthcare Disparities Impact Diagnosis?
More Programs and Publications Featuring Dr. Brandy Gunsolus
In this program:
How do socio-economic factors, racial disparities, or access to healthcare impact timely and accurate diagnosis? Hear from respected medical laboratory scientist Dr. Brandy Gunsolus.
Transcript
Interviewer:
How do socio-economic factors, racial disparities, or access to healthcare impact timely and accurate diagnosis?
Dr. Brandy Gunsolus:
So these disparities have a huge impact on predominantly timely diagnosis. It can affect accurate diagnosis where individuals may not be able to afford specific testing that is needed or have access to that testing in the areas where they live. But a much larger issue is the lack of ability to afford the healthcare that they really need. A lot of this is unfortunately inherent in the way that our healthcare system is set up here in the U.S. where you have insurance companies that...
…basically dictate your healthcare. They decide, who will get healthcare why they get healthcare, and the different companies. There is a disparity in the care. Those with more expensive insurance, they get better care than those that are on Medicaid. And those on Medicaid get better care than those that have no insurance at all. There is an unfortunate thing when patients have to decide, should I seek medical care or do I pay my rent? Should I refill my prescription for my high blood pressure, or do I pay my electric bill? Do I really need this asthma inhaler, or do I buy food for my kids?
That is the disparities that we're really looking at, and those are your socioeconomic factors, but it really does play along racial lines where your minorities are more likely to face those issues than majority races are. It is very unfortunate that healthcare has come to that point in this country, although it has been that way for quite some time. You can see that these disparities do not exist in many other developed countries.
There are sufficient funds within the healthcare system to provide coverage for all the money that is paid to insurance companies, which are currently and continually making record profits every single quarter. That money should be put into healthcare, not profits. If we continue to move to, if we continue to have insurance in this country, they need to be nonprofit with every dollar being put back into the patients that they serve. If we move towards a socialized medicine, which there is the money for, and we are the only developed country that doesn't have a version of socialized medicine, we would certainly reduce these disparities, these issues with individuals having different socioeconomic factors, having a lack of access to basic healthcare, and not having to make these unfortunate decisions between their health or their kids’ health or their spouse's health and basic necessities of life.
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