EthnicMajority

You would think that if the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has concerns about healthcare reform, it is because people of color are getting screwed in the process. Guess again.

Instead, the Commission has questioned whether some of the provisions provide racial preferences that are unconstitutional. Say what? It became clear where the Commission was coming from after looking at its members – four appointed by George W. Bush, two independents, and two Democrats appointed by Congress.

It is no surprise that the Commission has come under fire from the Leadership Council on Civil Rights, a coalition of 200 civil rights organizations, for becoming too political. That would seem almost a prerequisite for working in the Bush administration. Apparently the Commission has taken issue with programs in the healthcare bill that would provide incentives for physicians to practice in underserved areas by forgiving medical school debts, and education for underserved populations about public health issues.

This is exactly the kind of thing the Commission should be advocating for, instead of opposing in such a blatantly political way.

Ethnicmajority healthcare page.

In watching the television coverage of the staged protests at town hall meetings to discuss healthcare reform, it occurred to me that there are some noticeable faces missing from these mobs – those of people of color. While this demographic could be mistaken for the Republican party, who openly encouraged turning public discussion forums into angry shouting matches, I can’t help but think of the racial overtones in this debate (or lack thereof).

Many of the protesters expressed a common theme about why they are opposing healthcare reform. Almost all of these folks already have health insurance, private or public (Medicare), and it appears their main concern is that they will be footing the bill for covering the 50 million people who don’t.

So who are the uninsured? According to the Centers for Disease Control, 14.8% of the population is uninsured, including 19.8% of the working age adults (age 18-64). Amongst the caucasian population, only 10.5% are uninsured. This compares to 33.1% of Hispanics, 16.0% of Blacks, and 13.3% of Asians. Clearly people of color represent a disproportionately high percentage of the uninsured.

What the protesters fail to realize is that the insured bear the cost of treating the uninsured, which is substantial since they are getting treated by hospital ERs instead of neighborhood doctors. These costs are passed on to the insured in the form of increased premiums. So if you are already paying for the uninsured, wouldn’t you rather get a better bang for the buck by increasing competition amongst insurance carriers and stop using hospital ERs to treat minor illnesses?

Ethnicmajority Healthcare page.

I wanted to inform EthnicMajority readers of some new documentaries that have recently been released by California Newsreel. They look at contemporary civil rights issues such as housing descrimination, unfair incarceration and health inequities along racial lines.

TULIA TEXAS

Though its scrupulous investigation of a landmark case, this documentary uncovers the deep-rooted assumptions about race and crime that still permeate our society and undermines our justice system. The film convincingly shows how the ‘war on drugs’ has become a war on due process, waged against African Americans.

http://www.newsreel.org/nav/title.asp?tc=CN0218

SCARRED JUSTICE: THE ORANGEBURG MASSACRE

This documentary brings to light one of the bloodiest tragedies of the Civil Rights era after four decades of deliberate denial. The killing of four white students at Kent State University in 1970 left an indelible stain on our national consciousness. But most Americans know nothing of the three black students killed at South Carolina State College in Orangeburg two years earlier.

http://www.newsreel.org/nav/title.asp?tc=CN0223

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We have all experienced an upset stomach at one time or another from the foods we love to eat. However, when frequent heartburn and other discomfort are experienced, diet alone may not be the culprit. The symptoms may be indicators of a larger problem — one that is best addressed by talking to a doctor about what these symptoms could really mean.

Those who experience heartburn at least twice a week, even after trying home remedies and a change in diet, could be suffering from a potentially serious condition called Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD), commonly referred to as Acid Reflux Disease. In fact, it is estimated that 6.1 million Hispanic-Americans in the United States suffer from GERD.

Full story…

Aging Americans, like other age groups, are feeling the effects of the declining real estate and stock markets, as well as soaring fuel and food prices. Seniors’ economic security will only increase in importance as the U.S. population ages. The nation’s health and social services resources will face unprecedented demand as 75 million people in the baby boomer generation reach retirement age—some with eroded savings and retirement accounts.

Fighting elderly poverty

Between 1959 and 1974, the elderly poverty rate fell from 35 percent to 15 percent. This was largely attributable to a set of increases in Social Security benefits. The elderly poverty rate has continued to decline in subsequent decades, reaching 9.4 percent in 2006. Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits continue to play a key role in reducing elderly poverty, especially among women and people of color. If Social Security benefits did not exist, an estimated 44 percent of the elderly would be poor today, assuming no changes in behavior.

Full story…

The “face” of the AIDS epidemic in the United States has changed, according to Marilyn Swyers, manager of AIDS Outreach for the East Alabama Medical Center.

AIDS was once viewed as a disease found primarily in gay, white men in big cities. “Twenty-seven years later,” however, Swyers says “it is disproportionately affecting the African-American and Latino populations.”

Hispanics have gone rather unnoticed in terms of HIV infection rates. They account for 14 percent of the United States population, yet represented 22 percent of new HIV and AIDS diagnoses in 2006.

Full story…

THIS WEEK, THE NATION’S largest organization of physicians — the American Medical Association, or AMA, — formally apologized for its history of racial transgressions against African-American physicians.

In its related publication in the July 16 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the AMA acknowledged its discrimination against black physicians well into the era of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. The association hopes that by “confronting the past we can embrace the future.”

The association’s transgressions against African-American doctors were severe. For example, the AMA had allowed its state and local subsidiaries to exclude black physicians from membership, effectively banning them from its politically powerful national group. As recently as 1954, it refused membership to a local medical society made up of black physicians in North Carolina.

Full story… 

California’s population is much more racially and ethnically diverse than its physicians, according to a report by the Center for California Health Workforce Studies. That’s a concern, the study stated, because minority physicians play a key role in the minority community’s access to care.

The report found that Hispanics made up 32% of the state’s general population but only 5% of its practicing physicians. Blacks accounted for 7% of the population and 3% of physicians. Native Americans were 1% of the population and 0.6% of physicians.

As a group, Asian and Pacific Islanders were not underrepresented, making up 11% of the general population and 26% of physicians. However, there were shortages in Asian subgroups such as the Hmong, Samoans and Cambodians.

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Legal scholars, health-care advocates and public officials participating in the Freedom’s Voice Conference in April depicted a health and prison crisis that is limiting opportunities for people of color and devastating our communities. The three-day conference, which was sponsored by the Morehouse School of Medicine’s Community Voices program, offered recommendations on how to address many of the problems. But the esteemed panelists also sent a clear message that there must be decisive action to reverse public policies sending record numbers of people to prison, leaving those outside prison walls without access to health care and restricting people of color to segregated communities.

Full story…

The so-called war on drugs in the United States disproportionately targets racial minorities in urban neighborhoods, two reports said Tuesday.

Human Rights Watch and the judicial equality advocacy group The Sentencing Project announced the release of two reports Tuesday on drug-related arrests saying the so-called war on drugs “disproportionately targets urban minority neighborhoods.”

The Human Rights Watch report, “Targeting Blacks: Drug Law Enforcement and Race in the United States,” outlines statistics in 34 states saying more black offenders serve prison sentences than white offenders.

The report says the average across those 34 states found black men are 11.8 times more likely to serve time in prison than white men and black women are 4.8 times as likely to be sent to jail than white women.

Full story…