Access to healthcare: barriers and solutions

Access to Healthcare

According to the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC), 36 million Americans do not have access to basic health care. This number represents one in eight Americans (36 million Americans lack access to basic health care) who reside mostly in inner cities and in isolated rural communities. Half of these people are from low-income families and two in five are minorities. As many as twenty-eight percent of Latinos are medically unserved. Unfortunately, the problem of the high number of uninsured and disparities in healthcare treatment is growing, presenting significant barriers to social justice for all Americans.

Currently, the high number of uninsured Americans is feeding a vicious cycle of increasing the number of people that lack insurance (Marks, 2002). This is because the uninsured tend to delay care until their problem reaches a crisis. At this point, they go to the emergency room which is expensive and inefficient. And, the uninsured often can't afford the bill. This bad debt for hospitals is passed on to people who do have insurance through even higher costs. Thus, insurance costs increase which makes it even more expensive for employers to provide health insurance, further increasing the number of uninsured people.