Health Care Justice Blog is about the injustice and inequity in our health care system that harms people every day, but does not necessarily get the public attention it deserves.
The public debate about health care focuses on how to get more people covered by health insurance: the implicit assumption is that insurance coverage equals health care access. While insurance is a critical tool for ensuring health care access, health care injustice is a much broader problem that harms the insured and uninsured in numerous ways:
- Private insurance does not necessarily guarantee health care access because of bad faith denials, illegal rescissions (retroactive termination), discrimination, and the sale of "junk insurance" policies that leave patients with medical debt and unable to get necessary care.
- Women, LGBT people, and people with mental health conditions, developmental disabilities, and HIV/AIDS are routinely discriminated against by insurers and some medical providers.
- Hospital closures, physician flight, and government funding cuts in underserved, predominantly minority communities, mean that racial and ethnic minorities have a more difficult time accessing care regardless of insurance status.
- Ironically, the only groups with a "constitutional right" to health care — those in prison and civil detention centers — too often are denied medically necessary care which results in severe and prolonged pain, disability, or even death.
- The uninsured have significant barriers to health care, but federal and state laws provide some help. For example, nonprofit hospitals have "charitable obligations" to provide free or discounted care, but many patients don't know about this help or how to access it.
- Existing health care, antidiscrimination, and charitable trust laws create minimal access and quality standards for all communities. Unfortunately, these laws are routinely ignored by the government regulators responsible for their enforcement.
Achieving health care justice requires more than simply expanding insurance coverage. It also requires: a financing and delivery system that is capable of providing timely care in a nondiscriminatory manner; a legal system that is willing to enforce health care, charitable trust, and antidiscrimination laws aggressively; and communities that are knowledgeable about their health care and civil rights.
This Blog does a number of things. It explains what kind of injustices exist in the private health care market and the public safety net; explores the extent to which federal, state or local laws provide tools for improving health care access; and identifies the gaps in existing health care law, enforcement practices, and policies that exacerbate access problems. Health Care Justice Blog offers news analysis, legal commentary, and notable health reform and policy developments. It also provides resources for individuals, lawyers, and policymakers — check out the links on the right. Finally, you can share your own experiences by posting a "Testimonial" — click on the link in the upper right hand corner.
I hope you find this site interesting and useful. I welcome any suggestions or comments.
