Health Care and the Black Elderly

Abstract

While I could have picked any subject concerning the elderly, this paper mainly focuses on the health care system and how it affects the elderly, and in particular the black elderly. The federal government has said that the elderly are becoming a burden. More money is being spent taking care of the elderly than ever before because the elderly need more medical attention than any other age group, and because more elderly people advantage of government help like Medicare and are taking Medicaid. Therefore, the government finds itself spending more money to provide health care for the elderly. As this concern has grown, researchers begin to take a long critical look at the entire health care system. The intent of this paper is to present an overview of the information already published while focusing on four aspects of the health care system. 1) How the high cost of health care has affected the health care field, and what are some of its repercussions; 2) How Medicare and Medicaid contribute or do not contribute to the health care that the black elderly receive; 3) The quality of care the black elderly receive; 4) The access/utilization of health care by the black elderly. Finally, I will to try to offer some reasonable solutions. Dr. Morris said we have to find a way to get money into these people's hands, and a sense of power into their minds, but this is not easy. I think it is important to know where we have been, and where we are, in order to figure out where we are going to go from here. This paper is not theory oriented paper, but rather it is a practical application paper. Working in Ann Arbor at the Institute of Gerontology presented my with a great opportunity to use books that I otherwise would not have had easy access to. The main authors that I used was Robert Taylor, Linda Chatters, LuAnn Aday, Ronald Anderson, Gretchen Fleming, Laura Berman, Michael Wagner, and Jacquelyne Jackson. All of these people except for Berman and Wagner are noted in the gerontology field , and most of their views concerning health care and the black elderly are for the most part consistent. I will expound upon the main points of their research, and hopefully be a little creative with my own.