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One clear sign of a post racial America would be equitable healthcare where we are no longer seeing racial health disparities that have existed forever. Old systems and old cultural ways of doing things may be contributing to this problem. Many of the systems that have perpetuated the problem seem to have built-in incentives to not change. The Healthcare System in the United States seems to be the golden goose that keeps on giving and giving and never disappoints. The Affordable Care Act or Obama Care took a nice crack at fixing some of the low hanging fruit problems like access to coverage, some patient rights problems, and the expansion of Medicaid to help pay for care. We are grateful for these innovations, but unfortunately this still falls woefully short of righting the ship with still close to 10% of the population classified as uninsured while adding trillions more in spending, up to $6 trillion expected by 2027 according to the NHE.
SOURCE: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Office of the Actuary.

To be equitable or to be treated equitably is the fairest way to ask for fair treatment in this country. This is simply expecting to receive the same chances at succeeding as an American citizen and the same chance at successful outcomes from services when you have the same need circumstances, are paying the same price and receiving services from the exact same service provider. Without blaming or shaming anyone, the truth is that achieving this in the United States still manages to elude us, and I believe is the overwhelming reason our spending on healthcare is the highest of any comparable industrialized country in the world.

In the case where there is a lack of equity in healthcare it shows up in what are called health disparities. In this country there are well documented cases of health disparities along racial lines. We see these disparities across the spectrum of the healthcare experience, from leadership in healthcare board rooms, to the physicians and nurses who are the providers, the provider organization’s decision-making executives, practice ownership and other critical roles. The by-product of not having equitable care delivery systems are health disparities in clinical outcomes where people of color will see bad outcomes in some case 3-4 times more often than their white counterparts.

One example of this is in maternal infant health where these disparities have persisted for many decades despite many medical care advancements. Advancing Healthcare Systems Group has identified these disparities as a characteristic of vulnerable and at-risk populations in this country. We believe innovations in how we pay for healthcare can contribute to the added benefits of increased health equity and reduced disparities.