Health insurance is a good first step, but more needs to be done
November 4, 2009
I am writing this from San Francisco, where later this morning I will participate in the 32nd annual National Diversity Conference hosted by Kaiser Permanente. I've also been on the phone for a few hours with the AMA Board of Trustees, which is meeting in Houston leading up to the AMA's Interim Meeting. I will catch up with the BOT in person tomorrow morning.
The title of the conference in San Francisco is Health Care Reform: Institutional Diversity Imperatives. I will present the AMA view. The AMA's Council on Scientific Affairs report, "Ethnic and Racial Disparities in Care," formed the base of AMA policy aimed at eliminating disparities.
The sobering statistics that blacks, Hispanics and Asians receive poorer quality of care regardless of insurance status helped dispel the myth that the solution to all health care inequities would be to just provide health insurance. While the AMA's Voice for the Uninsured campaign and our current engagement in the health reform debate have been highlighting that those who do not have health insurance live sicker and die younger, ethnic and racial populations in America have an additional hurdle to overcome if they want to achieve similar quality outcomes of those who are white and insured.
Heart disease, diabetes mellitus, cancer, stroke, infant mortality and HIV/AIDS are specific areas that the annual National Disparities Report-produced by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality the past six years-have documented. The AMA's Task Force on Disparities in Health Care, which it created in 2003, became the Commission to End Health Disparities in 2004; it continues to be co-chaired by the AMA and the National Medical Association. I became the fourth AMA co-chair of the CEHD in July, following former AMA presidents John C. Nelson, MD, Ronald Davis, MD, and Nancy Nielsen, MD, PhD.
The AMA offers a unique program, Doctors Back to School, which aims to increase the number of minority physicians and ultimately work toward eliminating racial and ethnic health disparities. I am looking forward to participating in two Doctors Back to School programs tomorrow in the Houston area, but more on that in tomorrow's blog.
Until later...
