HEALTH 
EQUITY

“For all of the widespread changes in the health care system…racial inequality has proven remarkably resilient.” – Gordon Bonnyman, TJC Co-Founder & Staff Attorney.

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Prior to the enactment of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, racism was explicit in health care facilities across the South, and de facto segregation commonly occurred across the country. Explicit racism was eradicated by conditioning federal funding through the Medicare and Medicaid programs on desegregation in hospitals. From then until today, it has been evident that the problem of unequitable access to health care persists.

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Black and Latinx Americans are less likely to have health insurance, and even when they do gain access to health care, they are subject to racial discrimination that causes poorer health outcomes. Some health care providers still have long-held beliefs that black people have a higher tolerance for pain and other physical attributes that influence their medical judgment and clinical approach. Such provider bias, along with numerous, egregious medical assaults – such as the Tuskegee syphilis experiment and the story of Henrietta Lacks – has seeded a well-founded distrust of the health care system among Black Americans. Other discriminatory laws and policies, like redlining, cause segregation to persist even to this day and confine certain populations to under resourced communities that lead to lower life expectancy. Today’s challenge is to recognize the transgressions of the past while forging a path forward to end racial inequality through better policies and programs that uplift rather than oppress people of color.