Racial Disparities in the Medical Field

Of the many problems that lie in the American healthcare system one problem that has been unsolved for years is the racial disparities that people of color face. Since capitalism has been established in America, the needs of people of color are seldom met which can be shown in numerous statistics. These statistics show many cases of how certain people are treated to different standards than others in the medical field. For example in ‘This American For-Profit Healthcare System Would Just as Soon Kill You as Look At You’ they list many statistics such as “Black children are seven to ten times more likely to die of asthma than white children.” They list other statistics just like this one which describes the way that people of color are treated which in most cases results in a lower life expectancy than those of white people.

Though the medical violence that is demonstrated in America may not be constructed by individuals it is rooted within the constructs of capitalism, as are most social problems that we experience. A further explanation of how the medical field is aimed to profit from citizens is stated in ‘Medical Violence Against People of Color….’ In this excerpt, the author states “The structured goals of the medical industrial complex are to heighten profits, legitimize the state, and maintain the dominance of the western medical model, which, in turn, perpetuates racism, classism, and heterosexism.” As I stated before the goal of capitalism is to profit from the people in ways that are not inherently stated such as medical practices. This raises the question of why do we continue to let US corporations take our money without providing proper care and why is there rarely anything done about these alarming statistics that reveal the disparities within the medical field?