MyBlack^® Health

Healthcare reform: What will it mean for people of color?

Source: Minnesota Spokesman Recorder

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, which overhauls the U.S. healthcare system, is now law. Beginning this September, the law will create subsidies to make health insurance affordable to low- and middle-income Americans. Government officials claim that by 2019, an additional 32 million uninsured people will be covered, and an estimated 24 million people will be able to purchase health coverage through new state-based health insurance exchanges. The law’s major features include: • Insurance companies will no longer rescind people’s coverage when they get sick. • People with preexisting conditions who have been uninsured for at least six months will have access to affordable insurance through a temporary, subsidized high-risk pool. • Insurers can no longer deny health coverage to children with preexisting conditions. • Parents will be able to keep their children on their health policies until the children turn age 26. • All new group and individual health plans will be required to provide free preventive care. • Funding will increase for community health centers to serve more low-income and uninsured people “The law is set out in a 10-year timetable,” noted U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius as she spoke in April at the Association of Health Care Journalists conference in Chicago. She complained that there still is “real misinformation” circulating about the new healthcare reform law. As a result, her department is “the help desk for America,” which soon will include a toll-free telephone number and a website specifically for answering questions, creating “a massive communication effort” to inform the public on the new legislation. The Obama administration is making a $1 billion investment in health and wellness initiatives, Sebelius told the assembled journalists. “There never has been an investment like this in health and wellness, and particularly in the kind of community-based strategies that we think can have a major impact on chronic disease conditions that have such an impact on people’s lives.” “I applaud President Obama and the Democratic Party that really took a huge political risk in pushing this through,” proclaims NorthPoint Health and Wellness Center CEO Stella Whitney-West. “But thank God that he was true to his values and really understood that this healthcare reform is important.” NorthPoint, the state’s second largest community health center, is located on the city’s North Side. Its clientele is about 53 percent Black and 82 percent people of color.

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