However, the impact of the racial division remains to this day. Blacks are over-represented in the ranks of uninsured Americans. Perhaps because of mistrust or because there are few private medical practices located in black communities, blacks do not use primary health care services to the same extent as whites. As a result, blacks are more likely to receive care for conditions that are preventable. Blacks have an age-adjusted mortality that is 1.61 times that of whites, and infant mortality rates are higher as well.
Blacks also seem to obtain fewer specialized medical procedures than whites.
A recent study done at Duke showed that blacks that had been hospitalized for mini-strokes were less likely than whites to receive diagnostic tests, are less likely to see a specialist, and are less likely to have surgery. Another recent study at the University of Alabama found that black heart attack patients are less likely than their white counterparts to receive life-saving therapies such as thrombolytic drugs or angioplasty. The reasons for these differences are not clear. It may be that blacks prefer not to have these tests or therapies, and that they don't want to see specialists as often as whites do. But it is possible that the cause of the disparities are continued discrimination against blacks by hospitals and health care professionals.