Health Divide

Theoretically, when a country spends billions of dollars on health care it would be expected that its citizens would have quality medical care and high life expectancies. However, the United States is proof that even one of the world’s wealthiest nations cannot buy good health. The reason is because health is not only biological; it also has a very important social dimension as well. (Sullivan 88) The United States poor health care rankings are generally believed to be the result of four major sociocultural factors, which are socioeconomic status, gender, race and lifestyle. In Lisa Berkman’s article “The Health Divide,” she acknowledges each of these factors but she gives most of the credit to the socioeconomic status which she believes heavily influences each of the other factors. According to Berkman, there has been an escalating health gap between rich and poor in the United States over the past two decades. She discusses the gap between the richest and most educated Americans who manage to be healthy and the poor and less educated Americans whom have a life expectancy similar to adults in third world country. (Berkman 1) With all the money that is spent on health care in the United States, it is not clear what benefit people are receiving which makes health care a social problem and Berkman believe it is the result of an inefficient system.

In order to find a solution to this problem it is important to understand what makes health care a social problem. It is the cost of healthcare; access to resources and other difficulties related to health care in the United States that defines health care as a social problem. There are four major conditions for an issue to be considered and social problem and our health care system satisfies all four of these conditions. First condition is deviance for a social norm, and this deviance is evident in the fact that citizens are not receiving the quality and access to health care that is expected. All Americans