Reform Effort Moving Forward As House Introduces Bill

By Elena Rios on 10/30/2009 @ 04:33 PM

Yesterday, leaders in the House of Representatives introduced legislation that combines the versions of health care reform passed by three different House committees earlier this year. Titled, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, this bill is a significant step toward achieving health care reform that makes quality care affordable for more Americans.

While we are still combing through the 1,990-page document to see how it will impact Latinos, there are several promising elements that will help Latinos lead healthier lives. First, the bill has a strong emphasis on prevention, banning co-pays for preventive care and funds to promote healthier lifestyles. Second, the bill provides affordability credits that will help make coverage more affordable for many lower income Latinos. Third, the bill does not contain costly and counter-productive verification requirements to participate in the private insurance exchange. Such requirements have no place in a private market and usually result in shutting seniors and low-income citizens out of services they deserve.

As we continue to comb through the House bill, and look toward the Senate to produce its own legislation, we’ll be looking for provisions that are particularly important to Latinos. In addition to making health insurance better and more affordable, we need a bill that takes significant steps toward ending health disparities and doesn’t discriminate against Latinos, including legal immigrants and those in Puerto Rico.

Ending health disparities requires a multi-pronged approach: in addition to prevention, any bill needs to address cultural and linguistic services and training of health providers, place health providers in underserved communities, recruit more minority students to the health professions, and collect health data by race, ethnicity and language.

In the days ahead, visit www.latinosunitedforhealthcare.org for analyses of the House bill and more of the latest information about the ongoing effort to pass meaningful health care reform.