Only recently has access been aligned with hesitancy in providing and administering the COVID vaccine to African Americans. Now that the Biden Administration is in office and the production and distribution of the vaccine has been heightened, the flaws in health care access that African Americans have known about and lived with for decades are fully exposed.
Health care is costly. Ask anyone. The costs may be offset by having “good insurance” if you hold employment with a company that offers it at an affordable price when compared to your wages.
If you are salaried, most times the cost of insurance is substantially covered by your employer. Private health insurance coverage is more prevalent than public coverage, covering 68.0 and 34.1 percent of the population at some point during the year, respectively.
The definition of Public health insurance is a program run by U.S. federal, state, or local governments in which people have some or all of their healthcare costs paid for by the government.
The two main types of public health insurance are Medicare and Medicaid, which are available to citizens that earn a certain amount of income as it relates to the poverty level.
Some of these individuals live in areas that have poor or inadequate health care. The kind of poor health care systems that have improper storage for COVID 19 vaccines, or are lost in the supply chain to receives those vaccines. This clearly helps contribute to the low numbers of African Americans that have received the vaccine. But wait, there’s more.
Below poverty level existence can slant access to technology, the internet, transportation and a job with enough flexibility to take off work to take care of health concerns.
Booking an appointment requires long or multiple telephone calls or computer attempts, which can interrupt work hours. Once an appointment has been successfully scheduled, going to get the vaccine may be met with child care coverage needs, transportation challenges, and long lines.
Today in Maryland to help combat the disparity of access, Governor Larry Hogan and Brigadier General Janeen Birckhead, announced the release of the Maryland Vaccine Equity Task Force Operations Plan to ensure fair and equitable access to vaccines for hard-to-reach and underserved communities. They were joined by Lieutenant Governor Boyd K. Rutherford.