In her analysis of the provision of health care services to a black family living on the edge of poverty in urban Chicago, Laurie Kaye Abraham notes that at least thirty-five million Americans do not have any form of health insurance (34). The reason for the lack is the United States' failure to provide a basic level of health care to all its citizens. It is the only industrialized nation, with the exception of South Africa, to fail to do so (Abraham 34). Instead, the American health care system for people who cannot afford commercial insurance or who do not receive insurance from their employers is a patched together system of state and federal programs that are attended by the inevitable service gaps and inconsistencies (Abraham 53). The case of the Banes family, and Mrs. Jackson, the matriarch, in particular is instructive of the system's problems.
The current patchwork system does not sufficiently stress the need for good preventive care. Every effort must be made to detect and treat health problems at the earliest possible stage of illness. Currently, age-old communicable diseases such as tubercolosis, sexually transmitted diseases, and childhood measles still plague Chicago's poor in disproportionate numbers (Abraham 18). In many cases these diseases may not be life-threatening, but they can lead to more expensive treatments if not caught early enough. The cycle must be broken at some point if the system is ever to be run in an efficient way that provides the best possible services to the poor.
The umbrella programs that are intended to provide health care for poor and elderly Americans are Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare is intended to provide services for Americans over the age of sixty-five, regardless of their financial status. Medicaid, on the other hand, is intended to provide certain health services to categories of people based on their income. The programs are run largely at the state level but are go...