[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 5]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 6505-6506]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              COMMEMORATING NATIONAL MINORITY HEALTH MONTH

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 27, 2006

  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate National 
Minority Health Month. Celebrated during the month of April, the month 
highlights the importance of improving minority health through focusing 
on initiatives to eradicate health disparities.
  The month was created by the National Minority Health Foundation in 
response to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Healthy 
People 2010 Initiative. Through the Foundation's efforts, and those of 
Representative Donna Christensen, Congress passed the resolution in 
2001 during the 107th Congress.
  Recognizing the disproportionate impact communities of color are 
burdened with pertaining to equitable access to health care resources, 
quality and outcomes, the month aims to eliminate health disparities 
through several mechanisms. These mechanisms focus on cultivating 
public and private partnerships among health care providers through 
enhancing social marketing, research, and legislative concerns as well 
as strengthening career training of professional health care providers 
to promote cultural competency.
  Mr. Speaker, this is not a new issue for our Nation. In fact, in 
1914, the state of African-American health was so dire that Booker T. 
Washington established National Negro Health Week (NNHW) in 1915. 
Additionally, in 1921, when the NNHW committee wanted to expand to 
reach a wider audience, the U.S. Surgeon General assisted them and 
together they published the Negro Health Week Bulletin.
  In the same vein as these events, National Minority Health Month also 
serves as a reminder of how much work needs to be done to eliminate 
health and healthcare inequities. Although public health data dismisses 
overt prejudice within the health care profession, in reality what many 
minorities face is a less offensive, but equally deadly force. 
Borrowing a term often used by President Bush (in another context): We 
are confronting ``the soft bigotry of low expectations.''
  Mr. Speaker, there is much research that supports the need for 
focusing on eliminating health disparities. In 2004, Dr. David Satcher, 
now Director of the National Center for Primary Care at Morehouse 
College, and Professor Stephen Woolfe, Director of Research at Virginia 
Commonwealth University's Department of Family Medicine, released 
mortality data that their research team had gleaned from the National 
Center for Health Statistics. During the 1990s, they concluded, more 
than 886,000 deaths could have been prevented if African Americans had 
received the same health care as White Americans.
  Equally shocking are the findings released in the 2002 Institute of 
Medicine report--''Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic 
Health Disparities'', which concluded with great authority that 
Americans of color receive lower-quality health care than Caucasians. 
It further explains that African-Americans receive inferior medical 
care--compared to the majority population--even when the patients' 
incomes and insurance plans are the same. Most shocking is that these 
disparities contribute to our higher death rates from heart disease, 
cancer, diabetes, HIV/AIDS and other life-endangering conditions.
  Mr. Speaker, the disparities are real and frightening. In fact, of 
the 46 million uninsured Americans, at least 60 percent of Hispanic 
Americans and more than 43 percent of African Americans are uninsured. 
Further, while African-Americans comprise only 12.3 percent of the 
population, we account for half of all of the newly diagnosed HIV/AIDS 
infections. Statistics also indicate that non-Hispanic whites have a 
higher 5-year cancer survival rate than minority populations.
  For this reason, I also would like to recognize National Minority 
Cancer Awareness Week which is an important effort held during the week 
of April 16-22. During the week, education is used as the weapon to 
empower the nation about the shocking disparities that

[[Page 6506]]

are found within the population of individuals suffering from cancer.
  Mr. Speaker, through these statistics, coupled with both the Satcher-
Woolfe and the Institute of Medicine's 2002 indictments of our nation's 
health care system, it is safe to say that health and healthcare 
disparities are not only factual, but they also have an overwhelming 
negative impact on minority populations.
  That is why dedication to keeping the harsh reality of health care 
disparities in the public spotlight is essential. For it is should be 
mission of this Congress to raise the expectations of this society--it 
should also be our mission to assure that all Americans receive the 
health care they deserve.
  If we are to bring about this change--if we are to substantially 
improve the health and life expectancy of all Americans, we must first 
fully appreciate the enormity of the challenge that we are confronting. 
We must also fundamentally change the way that this nation addresses 
our public health challenges. In fact, too many Americans of every race 
are dying before their time.
  Mr. Speaker, we still have a difficult road to travel before 
universal health care is recognized as a basic civil right in this 
country. I have been working on these health care problems for quite a 
while now, and I am convinced that the acceptance of universal health 
care as a fundamental civil right will aid us in ending the 
debilitating health care system that is crumbling before us. In my 
mind, both sides of the aisle can provide part of the answer to this 
very big issue hampering our nation.

                          ____________________