Discuss how the conflict perspective views inequalities in health and health care

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Conflict theory emphasizes the political, economic, and social forces that affect health

and the health care delivery systems. Among the issues of concern to conflict theorists

are the ability of all people to obtain health care? how race, class, and gender

inequalities affect health and health care? power relationships between doctors and

other health care workers? the dominance of the medical model of health care? and the

role of profit in the health care system. According to many conflict theorists, problems

in U.S. health care delivery are rooted in the capitalist economy, which views medicine

as a commodity that is produced and sold by the medical–industrial complex. Access to

high-quality medical care is linked to people's ability to pay and to their position within

the class structure. Those who are affluent or have good medical insurance may

receive high-quality, state-of-the-art care in the medical–industrial complex because of

its elaborate technologies and treatment. However, people below the poverty level and

those just above it have greater difficulty gaining access to medical care. Referred to

as the medically indigent, these individuals do not earn enough money to afford private

medical care but earn just enough money to keep them from qualifying for Medicaid.

According to conflict theorists, physicians, who hold a legal monopoly over medicine,

benefit from the existing structure because they can charge inflated fees. Similarly,

clinics, pharmacies, laboratories, hospitals, supply manufacturers, insurance companies,

and many other corporations derive excessive profits from the existing system of

payment in medicine. In recent years, large drug companies and profit-making hospital

corporations have come to occupy a larger and larger part of health care delivery. As a

result, medical costs have risen rapidly, and the federal government and many

insurance companies have placed pressure for cost containment on other players in the

medical–industrial complex.