According to a New England Journal of Medicine study, heart failure occurs 20 times more often among African Americans under 50 years of age than it does among whites in the same age group. Hypertension, obesity and chronic kidney disease starting 10 to 15 years earlier were predictors of heart failure.
Of the 27 study subjects who developed heart failure resulting in hospitalization or death, all but one were African American. Heart disease was untreated or poorly controlled in three out of four African Americans. “I would argue that the [treatment] system has failed,” responded Dr. Eric Peterson, a Duke University professor of medicine.
Poverty, racism and the privatization of health care, bred by capitalism, have deprived oppressed communities of quality health care. One in three people in the United States under 65 were uninsured in 2007 or 2008, including 40.3 percent of African Americans and 55.1 percent of Latinos. Over 100 million U.S. workers were uninsured or underinsured at some point in 2007 or 2008.
