“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane,” Martin Luther King Jr. said during a 1966 press conference in Chicago, a quote that would eventually become one of the most famous and frequently cited phrases among healthcare advocates.
Unfortunately, 60 years later, injustice and inequality plague the very healthcare system America sanctions, in which its design fundamentally fails at providing lower-income earning Americans and minority groups with affordable healthcare. Success in the healthcare system has evolved to prioritize profit and if this perseveres, it will force nearly half of Americans to choose between their money or their life.
America has one of the highest costs for healthcare in the world; in 2023, healthcare spending peaked at $4.3 millions dollars which averages out to $14,570 per person. Despite these high costs, a 2022 study evaluating health system measures across 38 high-income countries revealed that the U.S. has the lowest life expectancy at birth, highest death rates for avoidable or treatable conditions, highest maternal and infant mortality and highest rate of people with multiple chronic conditions.
In other words, America spends significantly more money on healthcare compared to other high-income countries and receives discernably lower results compared to other high-income countries.
To exacerbate matters, the number of Americans who can afford healthcare has dropped to an astonishing 51% according to a 2024 West Health-Gallup Healthcare Indices study, the lowest recorded since 2021. This drop in cost security, or the ability to purchase adequate care and medication, is disproportionately distinguishable within minority groups, such as Black and Hispanic communities.
While the percentage of cost secure White adults has remained the same since 2021 (58%), Black adults have dropped 13 percentage points (41%) while Hispanic adults have dropped 17 percentage points (38%). This indicates that there is a growing disparity of healthcare inequality amongst these racial and ethnic groups, a phenomenon which must be firmly addressed in order to make appropriate advancements in the American healthcare system.
The lack of affordability can be traced to issues embedded in the current insurance system.
As healthcare grows more expensive, private insurance companies raise deductibles, leaving a quarter of the working-age population unable to even use their insurance. That is, extensive cost-sharing requirements prevent patients from visiting doctors and receiving necessary care when faced with a health issue.
Findings from a 2023 Commonwealth Fund survey reveal that 43% of adults with employer-sponsored plans and 57% of individuals with Marketplace plans reported having difficulty affording healthcare. A similar pattern is prevalent among individuals covered by government entitlement programs such as Medicare.
Consequently, nearly two of five working adults are delaying or skipping essential healthcare treatment.
Clearly, the current healthcare system prevents Americans from procuring healthcare that is affordable, fairly ensures minority groups and adequately reduces people’s chances of developing sickness. Rather, it has transformed into a luxury, unequally rationed among those privileged enough to afford escalating costs. It is plainly immoral to have quality of care dependent on one’s income; everyone requires healthcare regardless of income range, so their care should not be tied to it.
The aforementioned statistics are a cry for help from the American people. The government, intended to protect the citizens it governs, needs to prioritize improving the healthcare system so that a vital treatment is not also a financial catastrophe.
Unfortunately, the United States singles itself out among other high-income countries by not recognizing healthcare as a universal right. This notion is clearly reflected in how healthcare is regarded at the federal level.
The Trump Administration’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed into law on July 4, 2025, withdraws $1 trillion from health programs such as Medicare in order to fund the administration’s other priorities. Ten million Americans are predicted to lose their health insurance coverage as a result.
Governments play a critical role in aiding the people they serve during times of crisis, and the current state of American healthcare qualifies as such. Experts warn that healthcare is approaching a catastrophe, with more healthcare workers contributing to rising healthcare costs and rising healthcare costs exceeding prices the economy can sustain.
“As a nation, we cannot and should not continue to support or tolerate a system that threatens the quality, safety, accessibility, and affordability of its citizens’ healthcare,” MD and Fellow of the American College of Surgeons James K. Elsey wrote in a 2025 viewpoint story for the American College of Surgeons.
Elsey’s words underscore the urgency the American government should exercise in reforming the healthcare system. When the current system renders nearly half of Americans unable to afford medical care, it fails at the very thing it was intended to fulfil. This prevalent inequality must be met with the immediate attention it demands, a resolution that can most successfully be addressed by the American government.
