Asian Americans and Health Care Reform

Marguerite Ro, deputy director of the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum and a former professor of Columbia University Medical Center, shares the concerns of the Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) community on the subject of health care reform in Asian Week:

New data from the Centers for Disease Control reveals that nearly one out of every five AAPIs is uninsured. Almost one out of every six AAPIs does not have a usual place for health care.

[...]Unfortunately, the presidential candidates have yet to assure Asian American and Pacific Islander communities that they understand or even acknowledge the challenges that our communities face in accessing health care.

She goes on to cite numerous community-specific statistics and concerns including the following:

• Language barrier as a bar to receiving quality health care
• A stress on improving prevention that notes a 10% incidence of hepatitis B in Asian Americans as opposed to a 0.01% incidence in whites as an example.
• A need to tailor the delivery of health information to the numerous disparate communities that exist in order to assure that the information gets across.
• A call for Asian American voters to make their voices heard at the polls.

Once again, we see that the desire for true reform is one that crosses all strata of society, all communities, all ethnicities, and all political boundaries. As we attain the "perfect storm" of reform that George C. Halvorson speaks of in his book, Health Care Reform Now!, we see that, as he puts it, "buyers are ready for a change."

SOURCE: "Health Care Refom: Why It Matters To Us " 02/16/08
photo courtesy of Joka2000

Clinton Care Chaos

The media and blogosphere are abuzz about what many are calling "HillaryCare 2.0." The presidential hopeful laid out her approach to health care reform yesterday in Iowa. It was shortly afterwards that her new ad debuted.

The attacks and analyses began immediately, with a frequent refrain being about Clinton's stance on the insurance companies. Clinton makes many references to not allowing the insurance companies to control health care prices. That adversarial tone is seemingly quite at odds with the way her plan is being assessed in some quarters. This excerpt from The Nation is a good example:

The Clinton plan maintains the current system of for-profit, insurance-industry defined health care delivery. The only real change is that, in return for minimal requirements regarding coverage of those with preexisting conditions, the government would pump hundreds of billions in federal dollars into the accounts of some of the country's wealthiest corporations. The plan's tax credit scheme would buy some more coverage for low-income families, which is good, but it would do so at a cost so immense that, ultimately, Clinton's plan will be as tough a sell as the failed 1993 "Hillarycare" proposal.

America is ready for health care reform.

But it is not ready for more bureaucracy, more expense and more revenue for insurance companies.

Criticism abounds from all sides of the debate with both Republicans and her fellow Democrats rushing to add their own critiques. Does this avalanche of criticism denote a defensive posture amongst her detractors?

ABC News summarizes the reactions from other candidates and comments on the overall state of the playing field:

Clinton's plan is "European-style socialized medicine" (Mitt Romney); straight out of Michael Moore's "Sicko" (Rudy Giuliani); an "imitation" advanced by a flawed saleswoman (John Edwards); inadequate and advanced by a flawed saleswoman (Barack Obama -- but how would he cover more people without requiring coverage?); and automatically bad because Clinton herself "set back our ability to move toward universal health care immeasurably" back in 1994 (a very aggressive Chris Dodd).

All the attention is a form of flattery; just about any other candidate would have had himself hospitalized (maybe even in Cuba) to be attacked like this when he offered his plan. The obsession with "Hillarycare 2.0" speaks to the control that Clinton exerts over the entire field, as the one person who at this moment looks like she has the best shot of being elected president (and who represents the match-up the Republican base craves the most).

SOURCE: "Clinton's Prescription for Another Health Care Reform Failure" 09/17/07
SOURCE: "Hillary '07 Battles Hillary '93" 09/18/07
photo courtesy of valentinapowers on Flickr.