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Health Care is a Human Right!
No One Should Be Denied Health Care
The Health Equity and Accountability Act needs MORE Sponsors and MORE support. This important proposal (H.R. 3014), dealing with the disparities and discrimination in our nation's health care system, is sponsored by Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.). It is an important first step to ensuring that everyone, regardless of their economic, racial and legal status or family circumstances, has health care.
ACT NOW
Action Needed:
The health and well being of people living in our nation, including low income families, racial minorities, legal immigrant children, and the rural poor in our country cannot and must not be ignored! We MUST act now to help correct the inequities in health care that millions of people face every day. Many minorities have higher rates of infant mortality, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, HIV infection/AIDS, cancer, and lower rates of immunizations and cancer screening. Legal immigrant children are being denied health care and millions of families in poor and rural communities have little or no health care at all. Our health care system needs fixing so that it can address these inequities and these needs.
TAKE ACTION NOW!
Background:
Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.) has introduced the Health Equity and Accountability Act (H.R. 3014), a bill to correct health care disparities and provide health care to the underserved and uninsured. Versions of this bill have been stalled for the last 6 years, but H.R. 3014 is now gaining steam with recent hearings in the Health subcommittees of both the House Ways and Means and House Energy and Commerce Committees. Help keep this momentum going! Contact your Representative and ask them to cosponsor this bill NOW. If they are already one of the 113 cosponsors, ask them to take a leadership role in promoting and passing this legislation. The higher the visibility and the larger the support for this bill in the House, the better chance we have for getting it passed, for getting an identical counterpart in the U.S. Senate and then getting the bill signed into law.
It isn't only high cost that keeps people from having health insurance and getting health care. Many health care professionals, medical facilities, and health insurance providers inadvertently pose cultural and linguistic barriers to people with diverse cultural, ethnic, and language practices. 36% of Asian and Pacific Islander women under 65, 20.5% of all blacks, and up to 41% of Latinas don't have health insurance. 25% of all Latinas haven't even seen a doctor in the past year! For those living in rural areas, health care is almost unavailable because of the shortage of rural doctors combined with the long distances people must travel to find medical services. There is also a severe lack of diversity in medical research studies. Many times studies are done without minority subjects, making it hard for health care providers to assess the needs of minority patients without accurate data to reference. Work needs to be done to explore the biological differences of patients with varied ethnic and racial backgrounds, in order to ensure proper medical care.
Minorities and those living in poor rural areas are also disproportionately affected by exposure to environmental health hazards. Often toxic power plants and other industrial centers are built in low income areas with the expectation that nearby residents will be unable or unwilling to mount a campaign to criticize these health hazards. Action needs to be taken NOW so that your zip code doesn't determine your life expectancy!
Rep. Solis' bill works to correct these injustices. This legislation provides grants for strategies to eliminate racial and ethnic health care disparities. It requires health-related programs of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to collect data on race, ethnicity, and primary language. This bill also provides for the establishment of health empowerment zone programs in communities that disproportionately experience disparities in health status and health care. And it includes the Immigrant Health Improvement Act (ICHIA) proposals, which provide health care to legal resident children of immigrant parents who have been cruelly denied health care coverage under the State Children's Health Program (SCHIP) program that covers low income children whose parents cannot provide health coverage for them.
Contact your Representative TODAY and urge them to sponsor and support this bill to help protect the health of ALL low income and diverse families and to correct the disparities that prevent deserving people from getting the health care that they have a right to.
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