Racism in Healthcare: Economic Forces, Policy, and Health Disparities

HCM 320 Milestone One Template

Use this template to compile important information and resources for your final project presentation. 

1. Public Health Issue Topic: Identify the public health issue you will use as a basis for your final project presentation. Briefly describe why you choose this topic. 

Racism in Healthcare as a Public Health Issue

I choose Racism in healthcare as a public health issue as it is one of the most prevailing issues that have taken a toll on people’s health (Ahmad, 2022). I have chosen this topic as Racism has not only permeated the healthcare system of the United States but has also negatively affected both patients and healthcare workers which has been detrimentally impacting the health outcomes of people of color (Biggers, 2020).

Economic Forces Related to Racism in Healthcare

2. Economic Forces: Briefly describe some economic forces related to your public health issue.

Macroeconomic Forces: These are the forces that are associated with large-scale issues that affect the market as a whole (healthcare-administration-degree.net, 2022). With regards to the macroeconomic forces associated with healthcare disparity, the healthcare policies, GDP, per capita income are the macroeconomic determinants of the healthcare and the disparities in the healthcare system.  

Macroeconomic Forces

Microeconomic Forces: The microeconomic forces are those factors that focus on the behavior of the people or individuals or firms with the market (healthcare-administration-degree.net, 2022). In regards to the healthcare Racism, the microeconomic forces that impact the healthcare include employability, income, education, wealth and neighborhood conditions. People of color including Black and Latinos face healthcare disparities in terms of lower life expectancy and health inequities as compared to their White counterparts (Biggers, 2020).

1. Key Regulation Policy: Determine economic policies or regulations that currently apply to your public health issue. 

Affordable Care Act as a Key Regulation Policy

In light of the racial disparities in healthcare in the United States, Affordable Care Act (ACA) was enacted in March 2010 (healthcare.gov, n.d.). The act has three primary goals; one, to make an affordable health insurance available to as many people as possible, two, to expand the Medicaid program to cover all the adult individuals below 138% of the FPL (federal poverty level) and three, to lower the healthcare costs generally by supporting innovative healthcare delivery methods (healthcare.gov, n.d.).   

Benefits and Consequences of the Affordable Care Act

1. Benefits and Consequences: Identify the perceived benefits and consequences resulting from the legislation supporting your public health issue. 

Health Affair authors (2021) report various monetary benefits with regards to implementation of ACA or health insurance that reduced income inequality between groups that were not only restrained to race/ethnicity and age but also with regards to the educational attainment among families (Buettgens et al., 2021). It is thus, a welcoming step to reduce racial discrimination in healthcare and would benefit people at large. However, efforts are being made to invalidate or effectively repeal the act but the elimination of ACA would badly impact the benefits availed by people below FPL and would jeopardize the gains achieved by implementing the law (Buettgens et al., 2021). 

1. Impact of Regulation or Policy: Describe the economic impact resulting from the legislation supporting your public health issue. 

Economic Impact of the Affordable Care Act

Although Affordable Care Act entails providing affordable care to as many adults living in the United States as possible and the reform has increased the rate of overall coverage in the US with a slight reduction in the coverage disparities associated with the healthcare racism, more than 30 million Americans still remain uninsured (Buchmueller et al., 2016). There is thus, a need to expand Medicaid in more US states and improved take-up of the program across various states that have already adopted the program (Buchmueller et al., 2016).  

Scholarly and Supporting Resources

1. References: Provide links or citations for three scholarly resources that you will use to support your ideas regarding your public health issue.

1. Ahmad, N. (2022) Uprooting Racism to Advance Health Equity. Robert Wood Johnson  Foundation. Available at https://www.rwjf.org/en/blog/2022/01/uprooting-racism-to- advance-health-equity.html   

2. Buchmueller, T.C., Levinson, Z. M., Levy, H.G. and Wolfe, B. L. (2016) Effect of the Affordable Care  Act on Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Insurance Coverage. Am J Public Health.  Available at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4940635/ 

       3. Biggers, A. (2020) Racism in healthcare: What you need to know. MedicalNewsToday. Available at 

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/racism-in-healthcare 

       4. Buettgens, M., Blavin, F. and Pan, C. (2021) The Affordable Care Act Reduced Income Inequality in  the US. HealthAffairs. Available at     https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2019.00931 

       5. Healthcare.gov (n.d.) Affordable Care Act (ACA). Healthcare.gov. Available at  https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/affordable-care-act/