WASHINGTON, DC--This week marks the second anniversary of the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA).  It’s also the week that oral arguments begin before the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the constitutionality of the law.  At minimum, the court will consider whether the law’s requirement that individuals who can afford health insurance coverage should carry it exceeds federal authority to regulate interstate commerce, and whether the law’s provisions to expand the Medicaid program are “coercive” to states.  Years of effort to create legislation that will expand insurance coverage, contain health care costs, and improve the quality of health care hang in the balance, and all Americans will ultimately be affected by how the high court rules.

Racial and ethnic minority Americans have an enormous stake in the law and Supreme Court’s deliberations.  Not only do many minorities face higher rates of disease, disability, and premature death than whites, they also face greater barriers to accessing high-quality health care.  These problems, however, should trouble all Americans:  given the nation’s significant demographic shifts (over half of all babies currently born in the U.S. are non-white, and by 2042 one of every two people living in the U.S. will be a person of color), the health of minorities increasingly defines the health of the nation.

Today the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies releases a policy brief, “Health Reform at the Crossroads: Will the Affordable Care Act Help Eliminate Health Inequities?” This policy brief reviews the health status of minority Americans and briefly reviews the complex factors that are associated with health inequities among majority and minority groups.

 Drawing upon research and policy analysis that the Joint Center conducted shortly after the law’s passage (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010:  Advancing Health Equity for Racially and Ethnically Diverse Populations, it assesses the potential of the ACA to address health inequities.  We find that the law has tremendous potential to significantly narrow health inequities, a goal that is squarely in the national interest.  Dozens of the provisions within the law address long-standing health and health care needs, going well beyond the controversial individual responsibility requirement and Medicaid expansion.  The Supreme Court, as well as national policymakers and their constituents, should carefully consider these issues as they weigh the ACA’s merits.