By Dorothy Rowle
AFRO Staff Writer
The National Healthcare Reform forum, held recently in Washington, called for health care reform now. (Courtesy Photo/Washington branch NAACP).
|
Zikia T. Jones-Martin addressed forum attendees on the passing of her mother, who succumbed to breast cancer after her insurance coverage ran out. (Courtesy Photo/Washington branch NAACP).
|
NAACP Vice President for Advocacy Vice and Washington Bureau Director Hilary Shelton was among the panelists during a recent healthcare town hall meeting that was held in Washington. (Courtesy Photo/Washington branch NAACP).
|
(October 14, 2009) - “Health care is a civil right –not a privilege, and the current system discriminates against people who are sick.”
Those were the sentiments of District of Columbia NAACP branch President Lorraine Miller, who was among an impressive slate of speakers during the national organization’s recent town hall meeting on healthcare reform.
Miller said that part of the reason for staging the event in Washington was because of its close proximity to the White House and Congress, where the debate for a universal health plan has raged for the past several months.
“This is a wonderful opportunity to be heard, to express our opinion and to say what works best for our community,” Miller said to the estimated 200 persons at the two-hour gathering.
The national healthcare reform forum, which called for health care reform now, largely focused on the disproportionate impact the lack of care and insurance have had on the District and other underserved communities. According to the Census Bureau, there were more than 46 million uninsured persons in the United States in 2008 and the majority of them were African Americans and Hispanics.
Such racial disparity, while a cause for national concern, has had an acute impact on the District with the recent closings of hospitals within range of the city’s Black neighborhoods, and the closing of a community clinic in Southeast Washington that catered to Medicare and Medicaid patients, the House clerk said. Southeast, which comprises most of Ward 8, is majority African American and has the distinction of being the city’s poorest community.
“The status quo is unacceptable,” Miller said, who added that the NAACP’s advocacy efforts won’t stop until quality, affordable health care is attained across the board.
NAACP Advocacy Vice President Hilary Shelton, who shared the panel along with Howard University student, Zikia T. Jones-Martin, added that in addition to the NAAC P, several other ethnic organizations have engaged in healthcare discussions by developing an approach to addressing lack of health care initiatives in their respective communities.
He said later in an interview with the AFRO that the broader picture of reform efforts was distracted “in many ways, by many things” that occurred late this summer such as disruptive town hall meetings and slurs that were utilized during some of the debates and discussions. In general, a lot of misinformation was floating about, Shelton said.
“We’ve done a very good job of sharing with NAACP [supporters] what was important about health care reform,” Shelton said, “and we actually worked to make sure there were many elements in the debates and initiatives to address concerns of the African-American community.”
Shelton said that NAACP’s concern from the beginning “has always been that the entire country needs to be covered, [but] that one size doesn’t fit all.”
However, it was the testimony of Jones-Martin during the forum that helped put more of a human face to buttress the need for immediate reform. Jones-Martin’s mother succumbed two years ago after a hard fought battle against breast cancer.
Jones-Martin said that having battled the disease for seven years, her mother was eventually forced to retire on medical disability. But after 18 months her health insurance was depleted and the mother was informed she was no longer insurable, as her illness had been re-classified as a pre-existing condition. So, after 18 months she had to stop taking her medication, was unable to secure care from private physicians, and was forced to apply for Medicare or Medicaid. But help came too late.
After going to the hospital and waiting for 10 hours to get into the ICU, the Howard student said, her mother died –two days later, just before the Medicaid and Medicare identification cards arrived.
“I feel that a lot of things that could’ve been done to save my mother were not done because of her insurance situation,” said Jones-Martin. “She applied with many different insurance companies and was continually denied; she had no choice but to stop taking her medications.”
Jones-Martin said health care reform in this country is a must-have, “with an option for people like my mother so that this doesn’t happen to another family.”