Coping with Unnecessary Loss: Inequalities in the American Healthcare System
Hany Castaneda was 26 years old when he lost his battle with Covid-19 on April 5, 2020. Castaneda was born in Mexico and came to the U.S. as an infant where he was raised in Summit, NJ. He grew up like the rest of his friends; he played football, graduated from Summit High School, and moved on to graduate from Misericordia University in 2016. The only difference, one that so many in his life were painfully ignorant to until it was too late, was that due to his status and income, Castaneda didn’t have access to healthcare in his adult life.
The Castaneda family came to America in order to give their children a better life and access to better opportunities for their futures. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to them, they were entering into a society where minorities who aren’t wealthy don’t actually have access to the same equal opportunity for success, education, and most importantly in this case, healthcare.
Of course the argument can be made that people of color who come to the United States have the same access to opportunity. But what a lot of people seem to miss is the fact that solely because of who they are and the color of their skin, they automatically start at a lower level in this society. The fact of the matter is, with our current system in place, privileged people tend to breed more privileged people, and people who start lower on the totem pole to begin with stay there for generations, no matter how hard they work. This inequality, due to the systemic racism embedded in our society, is the reason for the financial gap in our country and why people with less liquidity don’t have the same access to affordable, proper healthcare.
Months later when Castaneda’s death was publicly confirmed by the family to be caused by Covid-19, it was also learned by his friends that if he had had access to proper and affordable healthcare, he could likely still be here today. Due to this lack of access to affordable health insurance, Castaneda hadn’t been to the doctor in years. He was prediabetic and unaware, and Covid-19 accelerated this and caused his heart to fail. It boils down to the fact that if he had easier access to affordable healthcare, he could have known the position that he was in and would have been able to take the steps to receive the necessary treatment; which ultimately could have saved his life.
Castaneda could have been an exception. He had access to an excellent education system, he was a college educated young man who was qualified for a promising career. But, he and his family needed money, and being able to afford to survive in the moment outweighs the priority of having health insurance for the long term.
Alex Weitzner, a close friend of Castaneda, grew up a picture-perfect example of the stereotypical privileged kid in the same town. This difference between them never seemed to matter or really be addressed because “their friendship was stronger than the limits of racial inequity”. In his adult life, Weitzner shares that the loss of one of his best friends has been a wakeup call to the inequality within our financial and healthcare systems and has shed light on the need for real change.
No one should have to decide between putting food on the table, paying rent or having health insurance. The existence of this choice is a societal issue that needs to be more widely addressed, because it is something that so many Americans face on a daily basis and is so overlooked by those who don’t. For the country that spends the most on healthcare, it should be a given that it is accessible to the majority of Americans. This is a conversation that should not continue to be pushed to the back burner, because more than ever before, it truly is a matter of life and death in the wake of Covid-19. Taking the steps to close this gap and make the effort to create a more equal system is the difference between thousands more parents, siblings, and children mourning the unnecessary losses of their loved ones, and not having to.
