HEALTH REFORM continued from Page 18 ation of public health insurance exchanges. These exchanges would create a health insurance marketplace at the state level, enabling people to comparison shop for plans that meet predetermined federal and state requirements. The Romney-Ryan plan strikes a double blow to those who need Medicaid by doing away with the program’s expansion and slashing its funding a third in the next 10 years. Ethnic and racial groups are among those populations more likely to be without insurance coverage, representing one half of the uninsured population. They are also more likely to suffer from debilitating and lifethreatening illnesses. In a letter to Congress, the Leadership Conference on Civil Right wrote that “tuberculosis strikes Asian-Americans at 16 times higher rates; cancer kills 35 percent more African-Americans; and Hispanics are twice as likely to die from diabetes as the general public.”
Under the Romney-Ryan plan, ethnic individuals without coverage would lose access to benefits, and those reliant on Medicaid would suffer as a result of funding cuts. In addition to loss of coverage, the Romney-Ryan system would cost people in ethnic communities would lose important benefits now afforded by ACA. The Kaiser Family Foundation found, “People of color experience higher rates of diabetes, hypertension, obesity and asthma, and have higher death rates from heart disease than whites.” ACA extends proven preventive benefits to people with all kinds of insurance, including Medicare, Medicaid and private plans. These improvements aim to help reduce rates of diabetes, HIV/AIDS, obesity and other chronic conditions disproportionately experienced in ethnic communities. ACA also includes programs with great promise to improve care, such as demonstration pilot projects that are test models of care for those with chronic diseases. The projects are testing ideas like “health homes” to co-
ordinate care for lower-income residents now often shuffled from one site to another for treatment. The health care reform law also includes better data collection that can help close health care disparities, for example, between white and ethnic or racial populations. We are grateful for the opportunity this year’s election cycle has provided to ponder the future of Medicare and Medicaid. Yet, we are disappointed by the persistent neglect in the national dialogue to the beneficiaries who will be most affected by the changes proposed under the Romney-Ryan plan. People in ethnic communities, many of whom rely on low incomes and live with chronic, debilitating illnesses, must not be forgotten in Medicare debates. The very health – and ultimately the lives – of these communities are at stake. wi Judith A. Stein is executive director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy Inc., a national nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in Willimantic and Washington, D.C.. Joe Baker is president of the Medicare Rights Center in New York.
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