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Income Inequality And Health Care Essay

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The relationship between income inequality and health coverage/status is an important area to examine because socioeconomic status has an effect on peoples health and lifespan. There are two theoretical perspectives, conflict and functional, that provide explanations for income inequality and health care coverage/status. Conflict perspective is the idea that social life is shaped by groups who compete with one another over resources. This results in a power struggle over wealth and prestige in society. The conflict theorist might predict that social inequality characterizes the quality of health and the quality of healthcare; that is, people with social disadvantageous are more likely to become ill than the socially elite, and because of their disadvantageous they will receive inadequate health care. The conflict theorist might assume that in order to make more money, physicians will try to self-regulate their practice of medicine in attempts to define social problems as medical problems. …show more content…
The sick patients provide jobs for the physicians, and in order for the patient to get well they must follow the doctors orders. The information in table 1 is explaining to us the percentage of people in the central Texas region (2010) reporting they have no health care coverage, examined across various levels of income, ranging from less than $15,000 to greater than $85,000 a year. The information in table 2 shows us the respondents reasons for not having any health care coverage. And the information in table 3 illustrates the general health status for various income levels, ranging from poor to excellent. Both the conflict and functionalist perspectives can help to explain the data in the

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