The Human Cost of Healthcare Inequity: An Anthropological Study of Healthcare Access and Structural Violence Faced by Peruvian Immigrants

Abstract

Despite being in the top 10% of global wealth and having one of the highest GDPs in the world, the United States is still a country that has chosen not to provide affordable and consistent medical care to every person living within its borders. The experiences of US citizens and their access to health care have been conversed about extensively in political discourse as a critical healthcare issue. However, relatively little space has been made to talk about the detrimental and life-threatening consequences that lack of health insurance has on immigrant communities residing within the US. On top of dealing with high costs for health coverage, undocumented immigrants are intentionally barred from obtaining Medicaid or ObamaCare based on their documentation status. This phenomenon is often overlooked and unacknowledged as part of America’s health crisis and as a moral human rights issue. Thus, this thesis seeks to illuminate the experiences of Peruvian immigrants residing in Connecticut to situate their stories in relation to the larger anti-immigrant political and social forces that pervade the US. I will describe how the intersection of structure violence, health-related deservingness, and biolegitimacy heavily impact the way Peruvians navigate their personal, medical, and social worlds. Following this, I will provide a philosophical overview as to why the US healthcare system should function as a universal healthcare system rather than a health insurance system.