House committee examines COVID-19’s impact on communities of color

The Committee on Ways and Means today convened a hearing examining the disproportionate effect COVID-19 is having on minority communities.

“Many communities of color are in desperate need of resources for testing and contact tracing support to manage the day-to-day response,” said Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass. “And looking ahead, demographic data needs to be used effectively so that resources reach these communities to help them recover and rebuild. Although these groups have the highest rates of positive tests and mortality, they have less access to testing and treatment. That is simply unacceptable.”

In a statement submitted for the record, AHA shared information on hospitals’ and health systems’ work to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as recommendations for additional federal initiatives to address disparities related to COVID-19.

Among other areas, AHA urged the committee to “prioritize maintaining private health benefits for individuals and families and to increase coverage options for those who are already uninsured.” Specifically, AHA urged the committee to: provide employers with temporary subsidies to preserve health benefits; cover individuals’ costs for COBRA benefits; open a special enrollment period for health insurance marketplaces; and increase eligibility for federal subsidies for the marketplaces. 

In addition, AHA said Congress should “employ the resources of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities — which is congressionally-mandated to coordinate the research of the other National Institutes of Health’s centers and institutes related to minority health — to research and develop approaches to specifically address the COVID-19 needs of minority populations.”

Witnesses at the hearing were: Thomas Dean Sequist, M.D., chief patient experience and equity officer at Mass General Brigham and professor of medicine and health care policy at Harvard Medical School; James Hildreth, M.D., president and CEO of Meharry Medical College; Ibram Kendi, from the Antiracist Research & Policy Center at American University; Raynald Samoa, M.D., of City of Hope in Los Angeles; Alicia Fernandez, M.D., from the University of California San Francisco; and Douglas Holtz-Eakin of the American Action Forum.