South Carolina is firmly on the path to a health system rooted in the social justice principles of health equity, racial equity, and environmental justice.
Dr. Edward Simmer, interim head of the South Carolina Department of Health (SC DPH), formerly the Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC), has played an important role in overseeing this course for our state. Simmer was nominated by Governor Henry McMaster to assume permanent leadership of SC DPH in a position some refer to as “state health czar,” owing to the vast powers he will wield, particularly during pandemic or emergency conditions when liberties may be suspended.
To date, the public has found it difficult to challenge the changes taking place as part of the transformation of the state’s health care system. Much of that is due to not recognize the progressive ideology that is core to health equity or recognize the deeper meaning of terms that often appear benign and even compassionate.
First and foremost, health equity, racial equity, and environmental justice are all inseparable from Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives and the principles that undergird them. All social justice strategies are designed to expand and cement a socialist agenda and to gradually rewrite and reorient policies with the intention of completely transforming the underlying social and economic systems.
DEI, disparities, and social determinants of health (SDoH) also drive the South Carolina health care model. Readers will find DEI mentioned on the SC DPH page for health equity. Within the discussion of SDoH and health disparities under the section about statewide efforts to improve health, we are advised that SC DPH has established a DEI office.
Readers should note that, in January 2025, the SC DPH website page changed the name from Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) to the Office of Health Equity and Inclusion (HE&I). But in fact, that DEI office was set up in November 2020 and SC DPH (as DHEC) was urging public health employees to embrace DEI as part of the agency’s “vision and mission,” according to a public health program overview:
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Office (New). DHEC is committed to building upon existing internal structures and community relationships as well as creating new ones to enhance health equity in South Carolina and better reach our vulnerable communities. This includes continuing to take actions to proactively address long standing equity gaps and reduce disparities. This new office provides training, resources, and dialogue to further empower and equip DHEC’s PH employees to consider, practice and implement a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) framework to fulfill DHEC’s vision and mission.
Health equity and DEI are intertwined because disparities in health outcomes between racial groups and socioeconomic classes are a weak point easily exploitable through a social justice focus. The same methods used to implant DEI across our institutions and then expand progressive and even Marxian ideology through training involving identity walks, unconscious bias, multicultural education, and cultural humility are now directed at transforming the state’s health care sector. Among new graduates of DEI training are those driven to agitate for greater control over health care and also to economic sectors outside of health that are now being drawn under it. As with DEI, the goal is to advance the shares of power, employment, and wealth of certain identity groups who are deemed more favorable to expanding socialist equity policies since they are direct beneficiaries.
Health disparities, revealed through data and surveys, center on SDoH. SDoH are factors outside of the health care system, primarily non-medical causes, with social roots considered relevant to overall wellness and health outcomes. Therefore, it is argued, it is the responsibility of social systems to address.
Most U.S. health agencies, including SC DPH, now evaluate progress on health equity within the context of SDoH.
This is the same path recommended by the United Nations and the World Health Organization under various global health, equity, and environmental governance initiatives. This global guidance is translated for national-level consumption through organizations such as the US Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and nation level programs like the US HHS Healthy People 2030, a program referenced on the SCDPH website and in its publicly available documents.
Under the SDoH approach, everything becomes relevant to health and all public agencies are harnessed to employ centrally managed directives to equalize health outcomes in the name of equity. According to the SC DPH website describing SDoH, factors impacting health outcomes include:
…access to quality health care, education, social connectedness, healthy food, housing, wealth, and employment … primary care, and insurance coverage, as well as health literacy… graduating from high school, enrollment in higher education, educational attainment in general, language and literacy, and early childhood education and development … cohesion within a community, … civic participation, discriminatory policies, conditions in the workplace, and incarceration …where a person lives, such as their housing, neighborhood, and environment, and their well-being … quality of housing, access to transportation, availability of healthy foods, air and water, and neighborhood crime and violence… “Economic Stability. The connection between the financial resources people have, such as income, cost of living, and socioeconomic status, and their health. This includes key issues such as poverty, employment, food security, and housing stability …the environmental impact of hurricanes and other disasters…. (archived link)
Data revealing differences in health outcomes, for example, between white and black populations or wealthy and immigrant residents are relentlessly highlighted across government agencies and among community partners to cast a negative light on capitalism-based health strategies and to justify expansion of social equity programs. Disparities are also the basis for resource allocation using “equity,” a socialist-style distribution method that aims to make outcomes equal for all people. In health equity materials, the source of injustice used to explain disparities are usually traced to discriminatory practices with the root cause being systemic and historical racism.
The CDC, an important source of health guidance for South Carolina, states explicitly that racism is a “public health threat” and includes it in the conversation regarding disparities and SDoH. According to the CDC’s Office of Minority Health:
A growing body of research shows that centuries of racism in this country has had a profound and negative impact on communities of color.1 The impact is pervasive and deeply embedded in our society—affecting where one lives, learns, works, worships, and plays, and creating inequities in access to a range of social and economic benefits—such as housing, education, wealth, and employment. These conditions—often referred to as social determinants of health—are key drivers of health inequities within communities of color, placing those within these populations at greater risk for poor health outcomes.
Above all, health equity, as a policy route, is comprehensive and seeks centralized oversight of nearly every sector of society, including those covering housing, transportation, education, broadband access, and more, by pointing out the potential impacts on health.
Centering disparities and SDoH in decision-making redefines the very meaning of health care, once confined to improving individual physical conditions and controlling disease outbreaks. Disparities and SDoH are used to justify bringing nearly every and any sector under the policy influence of a centralized state health body, using a “whole-of-society” management strategy.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, our government exercised extraordinary and unconstitutional powers over citizens. Government demanded we close small businesses while allowing mega-corporations like Walmart to operate. Government shut down schools and pressured businesses to force employees to take experimental and dangerous chemicals which it scrambled to redefine as a “vaccine.”
Governor McMaster wants one man, Edward Simmer, to exercise incredible power over the health care system that Simmer has helped to created. The public deserves to know what that system might involve and who helped to create it.
Part 2 takes a closer look at one of the public health reports guiding our state and which Simmer helped oversee. In part 3, we will look at one of the SC DHS partners chosen to help chart the direction of South Carolina health care.
The post The Future of SC Health Care is Social Justice appeared first on Palmetto State Watch Foundation.