Law Commons^™

African Americans Can't Win, Break Even, Or Get Out Of The System: The Persistence Of “Unequal Treatment ” In Nursing Home Care, Ruqaiijah A. Yearby

All Faculty Scholarship

Empirical data show that racial disparities in the quality of care provided by nursing homes are a common occurrence, not isolated to Illinois. Nine years after the publication of the groundbreaking Institute of Medicine Study (“IOM study”) Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Healthcare, which acknowledged continued racial disparities in health care and provided suggestions for the elimination of these disparities, racial disparities still remain. One chief example of the continuation of racial disparities in health care is in the provision of nursing home care.

Decades of empirical research studies have shown that racial disparities in accessing quality …

Litigation, Integration, And Transformation: Using Medcaid To Address Racial Inequities In Health Care, Ruqaiijah A. Yearby

All Faculty Scholarship

Instances of racial discrimination in health care continue despite the enactment of civil rights laws, such as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 *329 (Title VI). Title VI prohibited racial discrimination by health care entities receiving government funding such as Medicaid payments. The federal government focused its initial efforts on hospitals. Because hospitals relied on federal funding, the federal government was able to force hospitals to integrate without much resistance from the hospital industry. However, since this accomplishment the government has relied too heavily on assurances of compliance from other health care entities, such as nursing homes, …

Does Twenty-Five Years Make A Difference In “Unequal Treatment”?: The Persistence Of Racial Disparities In Health Care Then And Now, Ruqaiijah A. Yearby

All Faculty Scholarship

In 1985, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Services (HHS) issued a landmark report that exposed the persistence of racial disparities in the U.S. healthcare system. Unfortunately, twenty-five years later, racial disparities in healthcare continue to persist. For example, since 1985, more African-Americans have died from coronary disease, breast cancer, and diabetes than Caucasians, even though more Caucasians suffer from these diseases than African-Americans. Notwithstanding their increased mortality rates, African Americans “have a statistically significantly lower mean number of annual ambulatory [walk-in] visits and are less likely to have seen a physician in [any given] year.” Studies …