The
present state of healthcare in the United States for poor and single family
homes continues to be an everyday stressor. The stressors of being in a low
income home, having bills, and not being provided medical benefits, definitely
is contributing to the unhealthy state of this society. In the video, Mary
discussed her small budget for food each month and that her choices are limited
because she has bills to pay to support her family (Unnatural Causes, 2008).
Mary's family consists of 3 teenagers and a disabled husband and that sometimes
the needs of the family causes her to take away money from bills, or food in
order to provide for her family (Unnatural Causes, 2008). Mary also stated that
these poor neighborhoods die early opposed to the more affluent neighborhoods
but that they do the best they can with what they got (Unnatural Causes, 2008).
Poor nutrition and having low or no income is contributing to the present state
of more people dying in the United States. According to the text, 45.7 million
Americans were uninsured for all of 2007 (Alexander et al., 2010). The text
indicated that low income people have a higher rate for not being insured and
that the family incomes below 10,000 dollars a year constitutes for 35.7% of
the uninsured people (Alexander, LaRosa, Bader, & Garfield, 2010). Lastly, the text indicated that
the uninsured are more likely to have poor health and also are less likely to
have access to care and that they die more prematurely then people who have
insurance (Alexander et al., 2010).
In conclusion, poor nutrition and low income families contributes to the premature deaths that we have in the United States. The healthy food choices are allowed by the government to be more expensive which causes poor people to choose the bad choices in the grocery store continuing this vicious cycle of poor health. I feel like we as Americans have a civil duty to make sure that all people get the healthcare and knowledge needed to survive in this world and if we don't intervene and ensure healthy choices are lower than the bad choices there will not be a new generation to hand the baton over to.
Alexander,
L. L., LaRosa, J. H., Bader, H., & Garfield, S. (2010). New Dimensions
in Women’s Health, 5th edition. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett
Publishers, Inc.
Unnatural
Causes. (2008). “There’s no small stuff”:
being poor in Louisville. Retrieved
from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dshh1JLO3ps&feature=related
