EthnicMajority

SAN FRANCISCO — Mrs. Cheng feels like she’s living under siege in her own home.

In January, an 83-year-old neighbor, also a Chinese immigrant, was beaten into a coma. Days after he died in March, Mrs. Cheng, 53, was attacked and pushed off a public transit platform, coming to minutes later with front teeth knocked out and her mouth full of blood.

Both attacks happened within a block of her house. Now Mrs. Cheng avoids going out, gets rides to work, and keeps her two daughters close to home. She doesn’t want to be identified for fear of retaliation, but she doesn’t want too much to be made of what happened to her, either. She repeatedly said through a translator that she just wants everyone to live in peace.

Still, such attacks and the death of a Chinese immigrant from San Francisco who was assaulted during a visit to Oakland have focused the anger of Asian-Americans here, pushing them to vent in emotional rallies their long-simmering perception that they are targets of racially motivated violence. In all cases, the perpetrators were black teenagers, police said.

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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?

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