Editorial: Reform of Healthcare Should Include Discussion of Racial Disparity

[This article posted on June 25, 2009. It is posted within the following categories: Politics & The Law, via Michael Douglas, MD, MBA.]

The public discussion on the seemingly never-ending saga of the morality of healthcare reform in this country has won the hearts and minds of those (non-politicians) on both sides of the ideological aisle. The general tenor of those discussions has focused on access to medical care by the some 46 million Americans who need it the most — the uninsured. But who really comprises this group? It certainly is heterogeneous to a degree. One could also argue that the heterogeneity in this critical group is characterized by many factors, of which the most common focus — race — is only a small part.

Should it be a larger part? So much so that race is a prime criterion essential to any long term solution on health care reform? This op-ed seems to say so. At a time in the debate when the president of the United States, a man of color, is focusing on changing the economics of healthcare to ensure its delivery, should the tenor of the discussion be altered to include race as a factor in reforming not only access but care inequity?

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