by Soraya Schwartz
Following a March 5 White House meeting of some 150 major stakeholders in President Obama’s promised national health reform package, a series of regional summits has been launched, starting in Dearborn, Mich. Through April, additional forums are set for California, Iowa, North Carolina and Vermont.
President Obama detailed the process and led the discussion at the White House session, where some half dozen Hispanic health reform advocates participated.
The president said he expects to see Congress complete health legislation before the end of 2009.
Governors Jennifer Granholm of Michigan and Jim Doyle of Wisconsin were invited to moderate the March 12 Dearborn session, which brought together a diverse group to present their concerns and ideas. The day started with a video message from the president and summary reports on the White House interaction the week prior and community meetings that took place in December.
Melody Barnes, director of the White House domestic policy council, represented the Obama administration.
Also joining in the first regional meeting were doctors, patients, insurers, policy experts and health care providers, as well as representatives from both major political parties.
Among those contributing ideas atthe daylong White House event were National Alliance for Hispanic Health president Jane Delgado, National Hispanic Medical Association founding leader Elena Ríos, National Council of La Raza president Janet Murguía, League of United Latin American Citizens executive director Brent Wilkes and U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.).
President Obama set the agenda: “We can no longer talk about whether we will have health care reform, but how we will have effective reform and how are we going to do it.”
Those attending, among them numerous Democratic and Republican members of Congress as well as advocates representing both business and labor constituencies, were divided into work groups to discuss essential elements a bill should contain.
Ríos and Delgado shared their assessments with Weekly Report.
Delgado commented on a major shift on how the nation will look at health care in the future. “The President is already clear. He’s saying this is all a down payment. We’ll get as much down as we can, but we’re moving in the right direction. And we’ve never had this much momentum.”
‘93 REFORM WAS ILL-FATED Ríos emphasized, “Everybody wanted to work together and had great ideas. I am optimistic.” She added the reminder: “The demographics of our country are changing. We need a bill that is responsive to all Americans.”
Becerra had contributed to his session that it is essential to ensure protections for the nation’s undocumented immigrants in any plans.
Ríos noted a key difference between 2009 and 1993, when the Clinton administration launched its ill-fated health care reform effort.
While today the nation has a much larger and still growing non-white population, in 1993 Hispanics and other persons of color were marginalized.
Now they are seen as part of the fabric of America and the backbone of the economy.
NHMA is ready to work with the White House and congressional leaders “to make the new legislation more responsive to our community’s needs,” Ríos said.
Affordable inner city, rural and border health care will be vital to provide accessibility for Hispanics and other people of color, she cited, stressing the need for more interpreters, language services, cultural outreach programs and health information technology.
The White House issued an invitation to the general public to join the discussion by communicating their interests to: www.HealthReform.gov. Hispanic Link.
(Micah Muscolino contributed to reporting and writing this article.)
