JOINT CENTER SAYS TRI-COMMITTEE HEALTH REFORM BILL MAKES STRIDES TOWARD ACHIEVING HEALTH EQUITY

WASHINGTON-The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Health Policy Institute applauded draft health reform legislation Tuesday, saying the bill under review by a House subcommittee on Health "recognizes the importance of achieving equity in health and health care and proposes a number of policy strategies to reach this goal."

"Health inequities impair the ability of minority Americans to participate fully in the workforce, thereby hampering the nation's efforts to recover from the current economic downturn and compete internationally," said Dr. Brian D. Smedley, Vice President and Director of HPI, in testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Health subcommittee.  These inequities "also limit our ability to contain health care costs and improve overall health care quality."  Since half of all Americans will be people of color by 2042, "their health status increasingly defines the nation's health" and achieving health equity should be "an important central objective of health care reform," Dr. Smedley added.

The subcommittee was considering health care reform legislation drafted by the chairs of three House committees - Energy and Commerce, Education and Labor and Ways and Means.

Dr. Smedley noted that the authors of the legislation "recognize that no single policy - such as expanding access to health insurance - will fully address health care inequality" and that it is important to "identify, implement and evaluate multi-level strategies, addressing health care financing, systems and workforce development" in order to improve health care access and quality for vulnerable populations.

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies is one of the nation's leading research and public policy institutions and the only one whose work focuses primarily on issues of particular concern to African Americans and other people of color. For more information, go to www.jointcenter.org/hpi.

Download PDF