Christensen-led panel to address reform of disparities in health care
Published: August 18, 2010
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V.I. Delegate to Congress Donna Christensen is leading a new commission assembled by the Congressional Black Caucus Health Braintrust with a goal of helping ensure that health care reform provisions to eliminate health disparities and foster health equity are implemented to their fullest.
The Health Equity Leadership Commission was established not only to ensure that pertinent health care reform information is communicated to racial and ethnic minority communities, but also to monitor and serve as an expert resource on health disparity elimination to the Obama Administration and to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as various provisions in health care reform legislation are planned, implemented and evaluated, according to a statement released Tuesday from Christensen’s office.
Christensen, who is a medical doctor, convened the first meeting of the panel on Monday.
“While the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act marked a historic day in this nation; a day that very few believed would ever occur, the real work of ensuring that meaningful health care reform is achieved is only beginning,” Christensen said in the release.
“This is particularly true of the numerous health equity provisions that are included in the new law.”
Christensen said if the provisions of the law pertaining to health disparity elimination are not implemented, are implemented poorly, or are inadequately funded, “then the promise of health equity in health care reform will never become a reality.”
Health disparities are gaps in the quality of health and health care among different demographic groups, particularly racial or ethnic groups.
For instance, the infant death rate among black Americans is more than double that of whites, and heart disease death rates are more than 40 percent higher for blacks than whites in the United States, according to information from the federal Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities.
The commission, chaired by Christensen, includes Dr. Willarda Edwards, past president of the National Medical Association; Millicent Gorham, National Black Nurses Association, Inc.; Peter Hiebert, attorney at Winston and Strawn; Dr. Marjorie Innocent, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Inc.; Dr. Tom LaVeist, professor and director, Center for Health Disparities Solutions at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Bruce Lesley, First Focus; Myla Moss, National Dental Education Association; Chris Porter, NovoNordisk; Dr. Brian Smedley, the Health Policy Institute at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies; Makani Themba-Nixon, The Praxis Project; Britt Weinstock, health policy adviser for Christensen’s Office; Fredette West, Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities Coalition; and Mara Youdelman, National Health Law Program.
Christensen and Weinstock plan to meet with Gov. John deJongh’s Health Care Implementation Task Force later this month.
