There is a direct relationship between health insurance and treatment discrimination. In my view, lack of medical insurance indeed leads to treatment discrimination. Lack of insurance subjects many patients to treatment discrimination which involve not getting the best medication required or even advanced medication for their conditions. In essence, a lack of insurance coverage has been widely recognized as a significant barrier to accessing treatment. However, since 2010, the Patient Protection Act and Act and the Affordable Care Act have provided individuals with an opportunity to improve access to quality and affordable healthcare through the expansion of programs, such as Medicaid alongside the establishment of the health insurance plans (Han et al., 2015). Even though ACA has shown its ability to minimize the number of uninsured individuals, it is necessary to offer policymakers with reliable information on how insurance coverage is used to reduce barriers to treatment.
Research indicates that even with the availability of health insurance coverage, many people are affected by several barriers in accessing affordable treatment (Han et al., 2015). More precisely, studies reveal that there are cases where insurance related discrimination may be defined as unfair treatment that some individuals experience from the health care professionals and are attributed to the type of insurance coverage they have (Han et al., 2015). In addition, research indicates that some individuals are being discriminated against because they lack insurance coverage. Some indications lie in the fact that some health care providers are not willing to treat Medicaid patients as a result of their low reimbursement rates. Some studies demonstrate that some Medicaid beneficiaries have reported experiencing discrimination related to the fact that they are not insured and due to the type of insurance coverage they have (Han et al., 2015). Most studies that have been conducted indicate that higher rates of discrimination have been reported among Medicaid as well as individuals who are not insured.
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In essence, insurance-based discrimination in treatment is linked to several delays that are associated with the care needed with suboptimal services. For instance, in some states, such as Oregon, surveys reveal that pregnant mothers who enrolled for Medicaid or were rather uninsured were most likely to face discrimination compared to those who had been had obtained for private insurance (Jacobs & Sommers, 2015). Further, several surveys indicated that mothers who had employer-sponsored insurance mainly faced coverage based discrimination, especially patients who mostly received suboptimal care. Therefore, all studies based on insurance-based perception to date follows the passage of the ACA of 2010. This was mainly based on the push to enhance access to quality care and health insurance coupled with evidence that much of the increase in coverage is linked to enrollment of patients in the public health insurance programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid.
This discussion contributes to the limited research that discrimination based on insurance coverage and how they are related to the provision of care, especially in the initial years after the adoption of the ACA of 2010. Several studies examined indicate that the rates of reporting discrimination were considered to be relatively higher among patients who are uninsured as well as publicly insured adults compared to privately insured patients. As far as treatment discrimination is concerned, the findings reveal the vulnerability of patients who are not insured in the current healthcare system. Overall, the main reason why adult patients who are not insured face treatment discrimination may be explained in part by the healthcare providers’ concerns linked to the ability of the patients to pay for medical care. On the other, hand, with regards to publicly insured adults, it has been noted that these group of patients are mainly considered to be low payers that deter the healthcare providers from offering treatment to such patients.
References
Han, X., Call, K. T., Pintor, J. K., Alarcon-Espinoza, G., & Simon, A. B. (2015). Reports of insurance-based discrimination in health care and its association with access to care. American journal of public health , 105 Suppl 3 (Suppl 3), S517-25.
Jacobs, D. B., & Sommers, B. D. (2015). Using drugs to discriminate—adverse selection in the insurance marketplace. New England Journal of Medicine , 372 (5), 399-402.
