Lose-Lose Situation for the Uninsured

As the number of public hospitals decline so will our health care system. By far, the vast majority of people that seek out medical services and treatment at public hospitals are those of low socioeconomic status, as they are predominantly uninsured or inadequately insured. As a result of this steady decline in public hospitals I believe that the disparity gap in access to even the most basic of health care services is only going to widen. Most people who are uninsured typically do not have a primary care physician and thus seek out public hospitals as their primary source of care (typically by going to the Emergency Department). Now that their options are slowly starting to wane, what little access to care they had to begin with is only going to diminish over time. They are going to be forced to go greater lengths out of their way just to be able to utilize the health care that many of us who are insured have the luxury of accessing within a reasonable distance and time frame. For example, with the closure of MLK-Harbor who knows how far the next closest public hospital is? In addition, will this public hospital even be able to properly accommodate this sudden influx of new patients seeing as the resources they have just to cater to their own community are barely enough in the first place? Moreover, will this newly care-displaced population have the financial and/or temporal means to even get to this other public hospital? Talk about a lose-lose situation.

Although the fact that we live in a capitalistic society that emphasizes competition and a free market economy can have positive effects on our economy in the long run, it seems to be having the opposite effect on our health care system. Instead of treating health care as a right, it is being treated as a commodity to be bought and sold. While this does not affect to a large degree those who are fortunate enough to be insured, it is having detrimental effects on the quality of life of the uninsured, a population which, in this economy is growing by the day.