Forty-seven million Americans do not have health insurance with a disproportionate share of the uninsured being minorities.
The America's Affordable Health Choices Act introduced in Congress this month was designed to achieve President Barack Obama's goal of universal health care for the entire nation.
But will this legislation really help Black Americans struggling to obtain or pay for health insurance? Yes, said Dr. Niva Lubin-Johnson, chairperson of the board of trustees for the National Medical Association, which represents more than 250,000 African-American physicians nationally.
“It will definitely benefit patients by decreasing the numbers of uninsured patients in America,” she said. Lubin-Johnson is an internal medicine physician who, for more than 20 years, has operated a private practice in the Chatham community, where she has been a lifelong resident. She is also on staff with Mercy and Advocate Trinity hospitals.
The legislation would definitely help African-American women, who have a long history of not seeking primary care early, said Dr. Dovilan Wyatt, a third-year resident ophthalmologist at John Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County who plans to start a private practice next year.
“A lot of disorders that we have are not detected early or at all 'til it is too late,” she said. “It seems like Black women, even myself, we just don't take good care of ourselves. We take care of everybody else but not really ourselves.
“The expense of health care is what keeps people from going to the doctor a lot of times,” Wyatt explained.
One of the benefits of the proposed bill would be the creation of a public health insurance option that would compete with private insurance companies. A benefit that Lubin-Johnson believes would increase efficiency in health care.
“A lot of people who don't have insurance use the emergency room as the physician office,” she said. “It really contributes to the cost of health care and is not a meaningful way to do health care. A lot of care that ends up being provided in emergency rooms isn't necessary and then the emergency rooms end up overcrowded and can't provide the care that they need to patients in a true emergency.”
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