[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 102 (Monday, July 25, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H6412]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H6412]]
                     REVIEW MINORITY HEALTH STATUS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, this past weekend Members of the 
Black, Hispanic and Asian Pacific Islander caucuses met in Chicago to 
review the status of health in communities of color there and discuss 
policy and legislative remedies.
  On the weekend before that, the Congressional Black Caucus held a 
brain trust, held similar meetings in Cleveland, Ohio. Both meetings, 
like the ones we have held in L.A., Miami, Newark, Charleston, and the 
U.S. Virgin Island were opportunities to talk to our wider 
constituencies, particularly people of color in this country, about 
their health care, or lack of it, their needs and what they think we, 
their Members of Congress and our colleagues, should be doing about it.
  Mr. Speaker, all of the places we visited are communities in which 
African Americans in particular, but all people of color, suffer 
disproportionately from disease and disabilities and die prematurely 
from preventable causes in numbers which are far in excess of our white 
counterparts.
  They are the health disparities that we have repeatedly come to the 
floor to talk about. Some examples are as follows: American Indian/
Alaskan natives have diabetes rates that are nearly three times higher 
than the overall rate.
  The death rate from asthma is more than three times higher among 
African Americans than among whites. The infant mortality rate for 
African Americans and American Indian and Alaskan Natives are more than 
two times higher.
  Latino women who were newly diagnosed with breast cancer or lung 
cancer were diagnosed in later stages and had lower survival rates than 
white women with the same conditions.
  Vietnamese women have cervical cancer death rates that are almost 
five times higher, and people of color make up almost three-fourths of 
all new AIDS cases.
  In our discussions on these and other realities of health care in our 
country, what our community said to us was affirming, but it was also 
frustrating, affirming because their comments, complaints and 
recommendations told us that our agendas are on target, but frustrating 
because we have not been able to get this or the other body to make 
these needs the high priority they ought to be.
  What is even more distressing is that what is on the health care 
agenda of this Congress would instead reduce access and increase gaps 
in health, and because of this, increase the cost of health care for 
everyone.
  We, people of color, are already over half of the uninsured. Medicaid 
cuts will further reduce access to quality medical services; so we will 
continue to get to the system sicker, requiring more expensive care.
  Association health plans, like the misguided health savings account, 
work best for the healthy, which because of centuries of neglect, 
minority communities are not.
  Worst of all, the association health plans remove these plans from 
State laws that protect our access to an adequate level of benefits and 
our ability to seek redress if denied. The only place fairness can be 
found in the bill is in its name.
  What our communities have told us they need are adequate coverage, 
expanding Medicaid. Just to cover 200 percent of poverty would make a 
major difference. They also want help to overcome the language 
barriers, and they want language services paid for, and not by the 
physicians and centers that provide our care.
  They want health care providers to reflect the diverse Nation we have 
become, providers on all levels who know, understand and speak the same 
language they do. They want comprehensive care and more emphasis on 
prevention and health maintenance for the diseases that disable and 
kill us in disproportionate, preventable numbers.
  They want a more effective office of minority health, office of civil 
rights, and Indian health service; and they want the health facilities 
that take care of us to stay open and be better funded. They also said 
they want resources and the technical assistance to be provided to our 
communities and our indigenous organization, not to groups from the 
outside who then come in and try to provide what only we ourselves can 
do effectively.
  They want all of the agencies of government that impact our 
communities, and thus our health, to work together. I want to take this 
opportunity to thank the hundreds of people who came out to meet with 
us, our sponsors that are too many to name, and our hosts, Case Western 
Reserve and the University of Illinois at Chicago schools of medicine.
  We of the Asian Pacific, Hispanic, Native American, and Black 
caucuses have listened. And this week we stand ready to provide the 
vehicle that responds to this important and large segment of the 
American population.
  The health of all Americans and the strength of our Nation depend on 
fairness in health care services and equality and health status for all 
of its people no matter their race, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, 
religion or national background, sexual identification or geography.
  Mr. Speaker, I am calling on all of my colleagues to provide the 
health leadership this country really needs to unite and not divide us 
as the bills that will be on the floor this week will do, and to 
support a better America, a stronger America, and the America our 
Founders envisioned by supporting the Health Care Equality and 
Accountability Legislation, or the Heal America Act, when it is 
introduced later this week.

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