Chapter 14Health, Health Care, and Disability

Health in Global Perspective Health in the United States Health Care in the United States Sociological Perspectives on Health and

Medicine Disability Health Care in the Future 

Health, Health Care, and Disability

Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being.

Health care is any activity intended to improve health.

Disability is a reduced ability to perform tasks one would normally do at a given stage of life.

Paying for Medical Care

The U.S. and Union of South Africa are the only developed nations without universal health coverage for all citizens.

About 1/3 of U.S. citizens are without health insurance.

The U.S. Health Care System

Private Health Insurance - cited as the main reason for medical inflation, gives doctors and hospitals an incentive to increase costs.

Public Health Insurance: projections call for Medicaid spending to double and Medicare spending to triple in the next few years.

The U.S. Health Care System

Health Maintenance Organizations - provide total care with an emphasis on prevention.

Managed care - monitors and controls health care providers' decisions, insurance company has the right to refuse to pay for treatment.

Implications of Advanced Medical Technology

Create options that alter human relationships. (prolonging life after consciousness is lost)

Increase the cost of medical care. Raise questions about the very nature of life.

(invitro fertilization, cloning, stem cell research)

Functionalist: The Sick Role

1. The sick are not responsible for their condition.

2. The sick are temporarily exempt from their normal role obligations

3. The sick must want to get well.

4. The sick must seek help from a medical professional to hasten their recovery. 

Conflict Theory: Inequalities in Health Care

Problems in the U.S. health care system are rooted in the capitalist economy.

Access to high quality medical care is linked to people’s ability to pay and their position within the class structure.

Race, class and gender influence access to health care.

Disability

Estimated 48 million people in the U.S. have one or more physical or mental disabilities.

Less than 15% of persons with a disability are born with it.

Accidents, disease, and war account for most disabilities in this country.

Increase in Number of Disabled

People who would have died from accident or illness now survive, although with an impairment.

People live longer and are more likely to experience disabling diseases.

Persons born with severe disabilities are likely to survive.

Living With a Disability

Strategies: Avoidance - deny condition to maintain

hopeful images of the future and elude depression.

Vigilance - actively seek knowledge and treatment so they can respond to the changes in their bodies.