Improving Access to Care

Abstract

The Death of Bessie Smith by Edward Albee, presents the playwright's version of the last hours of the famous blues singer's life. It is a disturbing play: Smith is a black woman in 1930s America who has been in a terrible car accident and is taken by her boyfriend to the nearest hospital. The drama centers around Smith's boyfriend's pleading with hospital staff to allow the black woman to be admitted to the whites-only hospital. His pleas fall on deaf ears, and Bessie dies en route to a black hospital. When I first saw the play in high school I was dumbfounded-could this have happened in America? Could anything like it happen today? Barriers to health care come in many forms. Racial disparities in care are still far more prevalent than many of us would care to admit. Infant mortality for African Americans is twice that of Caucasians [1]. Rates of diabetes are higher in minority populations than in Caucasians, with rates for African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans at 70 percent, 100 percent, and 200 percent higher, respectively [2]. Inequalities in health insurance coverage, poverty, geographic isolation, and language barriers, all affect an individual's access to health care. As cited in several of this month's articles, 45 million Americans are presently without health insurance. How do these people obtain care? What do they forego?