Advocating for Social Justice
In many U.S. communities, low-income populations use the emergency room instead of going to a physician or mid-level provider’s office. They often do not pay the bill for their service, which shifts the cost of their care to other, paying patients at the hospital. This practice drives up the cost of health care, but what else can hospitals do? They have to have a certain amount of income to keep their doors open. Is this fair? What if these sick people remain untreated and infect others? Is this just? Do they deserve care so that they don’t infect others? We talk about a culture of poverty in this country. What does this mean to you? What about those people who seem to bilk or misuse the health care system? Do they deserve care? If so, who should pay for it? Shouldn’t everyone be forced to carry health insurance so that everyone has a pay source? Can we expect people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps?
To prepare for this Discussion, you will need to read the assigned chapters, and then consider the following questions:
- What does social justice mean to you? Is social justice the same as socialized medicine or even communism?
- The notion of social justice is fairness so that everyone can achieve a certain level of health and wellness. After all, the Constitution guarantees everyone the right to pursue happiness. Is the health care system fair?
- If you could wave a magic wand and fix the health care system, what is the first thing you would notice indicating that it had changed? Or, in your opinion, do you think it needs to be changed at all?
Advocating for Social Justice
Affordable and quality healthcare is essentially a human right in the United States. However, this prompts the need to ensure that the patients adhere to the right procedures to access healthcare services to eliminate inequalities and injustices while promoting social justice (James, 2017). Social justice refers to the perception that every individual deserves fair political, social, and economic opportunities and rights. It describes an equitable distribution of opportunities, wealth, and privileges within a given society. Social justice relates to communism in how the two strive to attain equality for all individuals by eliminating discrimination and injustices (Krau, 2015). However, the two are different in some ways. While social justice provides individuals the right to earn a decent living and respect, communism revokes individual freedom and the right to make a decent living out of the state and is dominated by a dictatorial nomenclature.
Social justice also differs from socialized medicine. Socialized medicine describes the system whereby the government controls the healthcare system by employing professionals and paying for citizens’ healthcare services (Smoot, 2017). Generally, social justice ensures that individuals enjoy the freedom to access opportunities without the element of discrimination. Although social justice is a crucial paradigm that promotes fairness, the healthcare system is significantly unfair (Krau, 2015). Such attributes are the healthcare practices and policies that initiate disparities in the distribution of power, resources, and money among the communities. For instance, every office in a hospital setting has a specific role to play in the process of executing healthcare services to the patients.
However, some individuals, especially from low-income communities, overlook these offices and rush to the emergency room, while those with high-income levels follow the right procedures. This prompts them to incur extra costs as these offices have to continue their services, promoting injustices (Krau, 2015). In this regard, the healthcare system needs to be changed and implement policies that ensure all the patients are subjected to equal rules and regulations. Allowing some patients to skip some processes while evading the charges at the expense of others is substantially unethical (James, 2017). Besides, alternative approaches could be used to ensure that the low-income individuals access quality healthcare services, rather than camouflaging in the hospital setting to acquire benefits for free while leaving the burden to other patients.
