It is becoming abundantly clear that the opponents of President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act care little about minority health.

David Bositis, senior research director for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, has observed in the {Washington Post} that about 36 percent of African Americans have no health insurance (compared to approximately 12 percent of Caucasians).

“Because Americans of Color suffer from hypertension, diabetes and cancer at twice the rates of Caucasians,” he notes, “insurance companies, when permitted to do so, exclude us more often from coverage.”

“I wonder,” Mr. Bositis asks rhetorically, “why those who are fighting this law do not care about the high death rate and high rates of the illnesses of black Americans?”

Read more at The Afro.

GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney has said only one thing about the Affordable Care Act. It must go and on day one of his administration if elected he will start the ball rolling to repeal it. The Supreme Court may well save him from this braggadocio, vote pandering boast if the four ultra-conservatives justices joined by the court's swing vote, Anthony Kennedy, get their way. They have given every hint that they will scrap the law.

---

The majority of black uninsured are far more likely than the one in four whites who are uninsured to experience problems getting treatment at a hospital or clinic. This has devastating health and public policy consequences. According to a study by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, blacks are far more likely than whites to suffer higher rates of catastrophic illness and disease, and are much less likely to obtain basic drugs, tests, preventive screenings and surgeries. They are more likely to recover slower from illness, and they die much younger.

Read more at OpEdNews.

The U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) represents a significant advancement in the effort to repair the deeply broken U.S. healthcare system and promote equitable opportunities for good health for all. As long as its provisions are fully funded by Congress, the law will improve access to health insurance for more than 32 million Americans, prevent insurance companies from cherry-picking enrollees and denying claims because of pre-existing conditions, and incentivize more health-care providers to work in medically underserved communities. These are among the benefits that the law is already providing, in addition to what is expected as provisions of the ACA come into force over the next two years.

Read more at CNBC, Yahoo News, the Sacramento Bee, and Marketwatch.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act means that many people of color will see expanded access to healthcare, including those in underserved urban communities gaining increased prevention care. In a column for TheGrio.com, Dr. Brian D. Smedley, vice president at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, notes that under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) minorities, who are more likely to live in segregated and impoverished conditions, can expect to get help with services that reduce health risks.

Read more at Diverse: Issues in Higher Education.

President Obama has written millions of seniors, working poor, middle class Americans and African Americans a prescription for longer and healthier lives. The Supreme Court has sanctioned the heart of the president’s 2010 Affordable Care Act. But the angry crowd from the right wants to tear it up.

What the naysayers don’t understand is that the Affordable Care Act is not just about politics. It’s about life and death.

The Affordable Care Act expands health-care coverage for low-income Americans. It enables everyone to receive recommended preventive services at no cost and expands community-based primary and preventive care. It prevents insurance companies from refusing to cover those with pre-existing conditions, and it enables young adults to continue receiving health insurance coverage through their parents until age 26.

---

David Bositis, senior research director for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, says about 36 percent of African Americans have no health insurance vs. 12 percent of whites. Because blacks suffer from hypertension, diabetes and cancer at virtually double the rates of whites, insurance companies would often “cherry pick,” or exclude those with medical problems.

Bositis asked, “I wonder why those who are fighting this law do not care about the high death rate and high rates of the illnesses of black Americans?”


Read more at The Washington Post.

Thursday's Supreme Court ruling upholding the Affordable Care Act solidified both presidential campaigns' health-care talking points, with President Barack Obama's supporters encouraged by an election-year victory and Mitt Romney's backers more determined than ever to repeal "ObamaCare."

While the decision itself is momentous, it doesn't change what either campaign is likely to say about health care policy in America, some observers said.

"The court's decision today to uphold the Affordable Care Act means that health care will probably remain a secondary issue in the upcoming election," said Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

---

"It helps Obama," said David A. Bositis, senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington think tank focused on issues affecting people of color.

Bositis said if the Obama campaign is smart, it will use popular provisions of the bill in its political advertising.


Read more at Scripps Howard News Service.

The U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) represents a significant advancement in the effort to repair the deeply broken U.S. healthcare system and promote equitable opportunities for good health for all.  As long as its provisions are fully funded by Congress, the law will improve access to health insurance for more than 32 million Americans, prevent insurance companies from cherry-picking enrollees and denying claims because of pre-existing conditions, and incentivize more health-care providers to work in medically underserved communities.

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.

Maya Rockeymore interviews Brian Smedley and discusses healthcare reform and issues of healthcare disparities among racial and ethnic minority populations. View the video at GlobalPolicy.TV.

When President Barack Obama met with the nation's governors last month and offered to allow states to establish their own plans to reform health care in place of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, he insisted that states meet or exceed the same goals established in the health overhaul to expand insurance coverage, improve the quality of care and contain rapidly escalating healthcare costs.

The president might also insist that states show progress toward eliminating health inequities -- differences in the opportunity to have good health that exist between rich and poor Americans, and whites relative to most non-whites.

These health inequities exist literally from the cradle to the grave, in the form of higher rates of infant mortality; disease and disability; and earlier death for many people of color and the poor relative to whites and higher-income groups.

Read more at Kaiser Health News.