Should everyone be entitled to Receive Health Care Access

Document Type:Essay

Subject Area:Psychology

Document 1

Such disparities have resulted in some groups having limited access to high-quality health care, which leads to poor health outcomes. A comprehensive approach to health indicates that it has a direct relationship with lifestyle, the physical environment and most pertinently, socioeconomic status. If health care is to be viewed as a human right, then all American citizens, irrespective of their ethnicity, race, gender, culture, and socioeconomic status should have equal access to it. One of the most important policy objectives in the nation’s publicly-funded health care systems is equity of access (Awosogba, Betancourt, Conyers, Estapé, Francois, Gard & Yeung, 2013). Nevertheless, health and health care disparities. The social economic conditions in the community are fair. One in ten adults in the community are unemployed while half of the members of the community spend over 30 percent of their income on rent.

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It is indicated that 16 percent of deaths in this community could have been averted. The significance of this study stems from the fact that 21 percent of residents in the Kew Gardens and Woodhaven community do not have medical insurance. Additionally, 8. It highlights different levels of human needs essential for one to realize their full potential. Maslow, an American psychologist, noted that some needs take precedence over others (Latham, 2012). Beyond the conventional needs of air, food, water, and sex there are physiological, safety and security, love and belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization needs (Cutler, 2014). The needs are hierarchical, such that higher level needs can only be satisfied after lower level needs. Many families from poor socioeconomic backgrounds experience risks at multiple levels of Maslow’s hierarchy, which can negatively affect their health and wellness.

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The variable on the X-axis is Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The needs are placed on a progressive line as they appear on the hierarchy. The variable on the Y-axis represents the level and type of access to health care (Kelleher, 2014). The highest value represents the universality and ease of access to health care. The lowest value, found below the X-axis, indicates that health care is treated as an individual responsibility. Burwell was a 2015 Supreme Court case that led many to wonder why health care is not considered a natural right but a social right. The case was related to Obamacare (The Affordable Care Act) but the issues raised cut across the entire American health care spectrum (Henize, Beck, Klein, Adams & Kahn, 2015).

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Obamacare was a program aimed to ensure universal access to health care and it is unfortunate that such programs can be blocked for reasons not related to the evidence of their value. John Locke’s social contract theory, found in his “Second Treatise of Government,” holds that life, liberty, and property are the most basic human rights or natural rights (Locke, 2016). Natural rights are defined as decrees of nature that are beyond reason since they are neither man-made nor open to political arbitration. Those opposed to universal health care argue that it requires taking resources that one has earned, and is therefore entitled to, and transferring them to people who have not earned them, and therefore are not entitled to them (Miller, 2012).

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The reasoning behind this argument is that it violates individual liberty. In the social contract theory, however, Locke sanctioned the moral obligation for those who are in surplus to come to the aid of those in need (Uzgalis, 2007). He reckons that private possession is not ownership, but stewardship. As such, the right to private possession of resources such as finances ends where the urgent need of another arises. The resistance is attributable to the high levels of individualism in the nation among other cultural factors. It means that some people have the ability to purchase medical insurance, but choose not to. As such, it is highly likely that not all of the 21 percent of uninsured Kew Gardens and Woodhaven community residents lack the financial power to purchase medical insurance.

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It is imperative to consider all these points when seeking to conceptualize a way to sensitize the residents of Kew Gardens and Woodhaven to take up medical insurance covers. While the conventional route of communicating the essence of medical insurance could work to reduce the percentage of uninsured residents, it is important to also draft ways to appeal to those who opt against it for cultural reasons. G. , Estapé, E. S. , Francois, F. , Gard, S. K. , & Rhatigan, J. J. Rethinking the social history. The New England Journal of Medicine, 371, 1277-1279. , & Zuckerman, B. Addressing the social determinants of health within the patient-centered medical home: lessons from pediatrics. Journal of the American Medical Association, 15, 2001-2. Henize, A. , Beck, A. Beneficence, justice and health care.

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