Healthcare -- Equity of Access

Healthcare -- Equity of Access Issues

"Equity of healthcare access is in the eye of the beholder"

The phrase "equity of healthcare is in the eyes of the beholder" means that one's perspective about the ability to receive healthcare services when they are necessary is largely determined by one's personal ability to obtain those services. Therefore, a relatively wealthy person with full-coverage health insurance and the financial ability to pay out-of-pocket for any services not covered by health insurance is likely to believe that there is no problem of access to healthcare in the United States. Conversely, a person of relatively limited financial means who cannot afford health insurance or who has health insurance but cannot afford healthcare services that are not covered by insurance is much more likely to believe that there is indeed a crisis of healthcare access in the nation.

In that respect, perspectives about healthcare (in particular) are no different from relative perspective of other things, precisely because we tend to draw conclusions about the world around us and about social circumstances more from our direct personal life experiences than from anything else. A person who can routinely schedule preventative healthcare services without ever worrying about how to pay for them, and who can simply purchase any prescriptions at the drug store, and who can schedule and undergo any diagnostic tests or medical procedures that are necessary typically perceives healthcare as being accessible. Meanwhile, a person who must forego routine preventative services because of their cost, and who only consults medical professionals in dire need or who must seek medical care from hospital emergency departments because those services are free would typically perceive healthcare access as being inadequate and inequitable.

Defining Equity of Healthcare Access

In principle, genuine access to healthcare simply means that all persons and communities of persons within any given society have comparable opportunities to receive healthcare services throughout their lives, or "from cradle to grave" (Kennedy, 2006; Reid, 2009). It means they have an equal opportunity to receive contraception, prenatal counseling and services, post-natal services for mother and child, preventative healthcare services, vaccinations, and dentistry services, from earliest childhood and through their lives into their elderly years when they require more medical services to remain healthy and active. To the extent everyone in a given community or society has the same relative access to healthcare services and to the extent those services received are of comparable quality, healthcare access could be described as being equitable. On the other hand, to the extent everyone in a given community or society does not have the same relative access to healthcare services and to the extent those services received are not of comparable quality, healthcare access could be describes as being inequitable (Kennedy, 2006; Reid, 2009).