New report looks at ethnic disparities in health care
July 17, 2009
A new report issued by Acorn and Health Care for America Now says communities of color in Texas suffer most from the nation’s “broken” health care system
Written by Staff , Rio Grande Guardian
Mario Montelongo, an Acorn member from Mercedes, attended a roundtable discussion on health care reform at UTPA on Thursday.
EDINBURG, July 17 - A new report issued by Acorn and Health Care for America Now says communities of color in Texas suffer most from the nation’s “broken” health care system. The report, titled ‘Unequal Lives: Health Care Discrimination Harms Communities of Color in Texas,’ was discussed at a roundtable discussion at the University of Texas-Pan American on Thursday. “We must provide quality, affordable health care to everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, sex, or income,” said Mario Montelongo, an ACORN member from Mercedes who attended the meeting. Citing statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, the National Center for Health Statistics, the Texas Department of Health and Human Services, and the Kaiser Family Foundation, the report says 41 percent of Hispanics in Texas are without health insurance, compared to 16 percent of Anglos and 26 percent of African Americans. Here are some of the key data points contained in the report: • In Texas, 26 percent of babies born to Latina women received no prenatal care, compared with 23 percent for African Americans and 12 percent for whites. The report says that despite growing evidence of racial disparities in health status and medical services, no system exists in Texas for collecting comprehensive state and local data on disparities. As a result, the report states, many questions about the health of minorities in the state remain unanswered. As an example, the report says it is unknown how many African Americans or Latinos have forgone care because they cannot afford it, as compared to whites. “As we build on what works in our current health care system and fix what doesn’t, we need to address a long history of discrimination in medical treatment and reorient the way doctors, hospitals, drug makers, medical device makers, insurance companies, and government programs provide care,” said Jose Manuel Escobedo, Acorn’s border region organizer.
• About 2,990,000 working non-elderly adults in Texas lack health insurance. That comprises 68 percent of the total non-elderly uninsured population.
• About 41 percent of Hispanics in Texas are uninsured.
• Latinos are half as likely as whites to have a regular doctor.
• In Texas, 5,832,884 people were uninsured in 2007.
• Health insurance premiums for Texas working families have skyrocketed, increasing 87 percent from 2000 to 2007.
• The full cost of employer-sponsored health insurance in Texas is projected to grow at an annual rate of 7.5 percent, compared to a 0.5 percent increase in income.
• Latinos are more likely to go without health care because they can’t afford it.
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