Nearly 20 years ago, I had the opportunity to spend a summer working with the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues. Of course, I was absolutely thrilled when they asked me to support the introduction of the Women’s Health Equity Act. However, as I began to research the subject to prepare the fact sheets and advocacy materials to support the legislation, that excitement quickly turned to dismay.

As a bright-eyed college intern, I was shocked to learn about the underlying race and gender disparities within clinical trials and health research. I felt that same sense of disappointment when I started examining the race and ethnic disparities that remain in our health care delivery system today.

Kaiser Permanente recently ran a series of advertisements that highlighted the fact that despite the fact that our nation spends $2.5 trillion on health care, we leave more than 47 million uninsured (not to mention the 20+ million who are underinsured). Without the type of universal coverage that every other industrialized nation provides, our nation is forcing millions to forego care and get sicker.

Finally, our leaders in Washington, DC seem to be talking seriously about reforming health care. It seems that our economic meltdown is illustrating that, like many other industries in the news, health care is too critical an issue not to fix.

While the problems with the U.S. health care system do continue to disproportionally affect communities of color, the fact is millions of Americans are at risk of losing their coverage and millions more are locked into plans and practices that do not meet their needs. The current financial pressures they face are compounded if they get sick. For uninsured and underinsured Americans, illness is a crippling financial blow from which they may never recover.

We all deserve to know that quality, affordable health care will be there when we need it. And universal coverage must be the first step to achieving that vision.

However, if the U.S. truly wants to repair its broken health care system, we must also directly address how we pay for and deliver that care. Changing the way we cover health care, without actually reforming care delivery is a mistake. As a nation, we need to improve access to care, reduce costs and ensure quality care for all. At the same time, we must also strengthen the ways our communities and workplaces can, in fact, keep us healthy.

Enacting comprehensive health care reform will be a challenge. Change is never easy. Opponents will complain that the costs of reform are too high. However, I’d argue that true value of reform – better health – is priceless.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 8th, 2009 at 9:00 am and is filed under Consumer Health Care, Coverage Policy, Disparities, Policy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.