At this point in our seemingly never ending public health crisis, racial disparities — especially when it comes to who gets access to quality healthcare — have become even more painfully evident. Although some politicians and media continue to accuse Black people and nonwhite immigrants of “stealing” resources such as jobs and public services, two new studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) assert that it’s actually white people who get more healthcare than everyone else.
Among other things, one study found that in 2016, white Americans were responsible for 72% of the $2.4 trillion in healthcare spending, even though they made up just 61% of the population. Meanwhile, Black and Latinx people are spending much less on healthcare and accounted for just 11% of spending each, numbers that are lower than their actual share of the population, according to CNN.
