In spite of the fact that we have gained many victories in our 400 years of black American history in America, as a nation, we still fall mighty short in the arena of making health care better for all Americans. And we still have a long way to go in implementing real solutions for making health care better for all Americans, too.
Historically, health care for the vast majority of blacks in North Carolina began on the plantation. When it came to food, shelter, clothing, and medical care, slaves were subject to the control and whim of the master. According to Kenneth M. Stampp’s The Peculiar Institution, a book that covered every aspect of slavery, on a North Carolina plantation during the 1850s, 67 percent of the black infants died. Today, in North Carolina, blacks still have a higher rate of infant mortality, just one examples from many of the lingering disparities in health status between blacks and whites.
As we fast forward to the passage of President Obama’s signature health care law in 2010, the nation took a giant step to help improve the health status for millions of Americans, giving many more Americans access to quality affordable health care. It should not be that “poor wealth leads to poor health,” with health care reserved for the wealthy or the privileged few.
With that in mind, it is my fervent belief that every child born in North Carolina deserves a healthy start in life. Unfortunately, that has not been the mindset of the majority party in the North Carolina General Assembly which has ignored the many calls to expand Medicaid as a means to provide more health care coverage for the most vulnerable in our state. From that perspective, it may not be too extreme to suggest that members of the North Carolina Republican-controlled government have blood on their hands for their continual refusal to expand Medicaid, denying many uninsured North Carolinians health care coverage. This is especially egregious when it comes to our most vulnerable citizens, right here in Clinton-Sampson County where being poor should not be a death sentence.
But, in the words of Sampson County’s Democratic state legislator, Rep. Raymond Smith, Jr., “We have delayed Medicaid expansion for years now. These delays have cost North Carolina countless lives and billions of dollars.” I don’t know about you, but I think something or someone has to be held accountable for this present-time health care reality in North Carolina. With health care being so interrelated with every aspect of life, health care coverage should be right up there along with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Investing in health care by expanding Medicaid will be eventual cost-savings for all. And we should be about the business of helping people get the health care they need and deserve. It is only right “to improve the health status of the poorly served segments of our society.”