January, 16 2014, 07:30am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
SPR Communications; 301-526-0374
Mike Lapham (UFE); 857-277-7869; comms@faireconomy.org
MLK Day Report Underscores Racial Disparities of Health
The GOP's State-by-State Attack on Obamacare Makes Matters Worse
BOSTON, MA
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said, "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane." This quote is the touchstone of a new report - State of the Dream 2014: Healthcare for Whom? Enduring Racial Disparities - the 11th Annual MLK, Jr. Day report from United for a Fair Economy (UFE).
Findings from the State of the Dream 2014 Report will be discussed during a LIVE Media Call on Thurs., Jan. 16 at 11am EST. Call-in number: (605) 562-3000; Participant Access Code: 855317#.
State of the Dream 2014 documents the heavy toll that continued racial segregation and concentrated poverty takes on people's health. High poverty communities often lack adequate healthcare facilities, full-service grocery stores, and green space to walk or jog. These communities also face higher exposure to lead and other toxins, mold, and even industrial pollutants. These factors, coupled with the physical stress of caring for one's family amidst high crime rates, poverty, and persistent racism all exact a price. People of color face the brunt of this injury as poor Blacks are 7.3 times as likely as poor Whites, and poor Latinos are 5.7 times as likely, to live in such high-poverty neighborhoods.
Dedrick Muhammad of the NAACP, and an advisor on the report stated, "Governors and state elected officials across the nation have an opportunity to begin reversing the historical and persistent racism that continues to steer families and individuals toward poverty and poor health." He adds, "Their commitment to deny underserved communities and communities of color access to basic healthcare equates to a commitment to fight against justice for all."
The state fights over Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) - also known as Obamacare - deepen the insult to an already difficult situation according to the report. "It's bad enough that communities of color face additional health hazards and stressors," adds Brian Miller, executive director of UFE and author of the report. "Now we have politicians around the nation trying to block health insurance coverage that would have otherwise been extended to millions of low-income Americans."
Following the Supreme Court ruling in 2012, states were no longer required to expand their Medicaid programs as provided for under the ACA. Since then, 25 states - all but three headed by Republican governors - have declared their commitment to NOT expand their Medicaid programs in 2014. The nearly 5 million who are affected by the 25-state coverage gap are disproportionately people of color.
Blacks make up only 13 percent of the population according to the new report, but account for 27 percent of those who will fall through the GOP's 25-state coverage gap. The disparate impact on African Americans is in large part a result of conservative states in the South, where large numbers of Blacks reside, rejecting the ACA's Medicaid expansion.
Latinos make up 15 percent of the population, but account for 21 percent of those who fall through the new 25-state coverage gap. Over 1 million of the nearly 5 million who will go without health care because of the 25-state coverage gap live in Texas, a state that is 38 percent Latino. Florida has the second largest Latino population among the 25 states currently not expanding coverage.
Rev. William Barber, leader of the Moral Mondays Movement in North Carolina, writes in the foreword, "The greatest myth of our time is the notion that extreme policies harm a small subset of people such as people of color. However, these policies harm us all. What we've seen in North Carolina and other parts of the country are wealthy extremists playing on the fears of working class and white people... Our job is to unpack the truth about these extreme policies and how they adversely impact all people."
"We have a history in Alabama of enacting laws and policies that favor wealthy residents, while ignoring the needs of the underserved," said Dollie Hambrick of Alabama Arise, whose group is working to get Alabama to fully expand their Medicaid program under the ACA. "On top of that, our leaders have a long-standing resentment of the federal government. Those factors have been huge barriers to ACA implementation in Alabama, but the people we meet in rural communities and low-income urban neighborhoods have had enough."
Hambrick adds that the community in Alabama is moving to take action. "They're gathering in community meetings to share information and encourage others to get involved. And they're letting the Governor know that expanding health coverage can help Alabama overcome our history of destructive health disparities."
As originally designed, the ACA established health insurance exchanges to make it possible for middle-income Americans who don't get healthcare through their employers or other means to buy policies, with tax credits available to assist with the cost. However, a key provision of the ACA is the expansion of existing Medicaid programs to individuals up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line. It is this second provision that is currently under assault across the nation.
In addition to pressuring the 25 states to expand their Medicaid programs, the report calls for bolder action. "As long as we depend largely on employers to provide health insurance, our healthcare system will simply reflect the vast racial disparities of employment," adds Miller. "People of color, who are often relegated to low-wage, part-time, and temporary jobs that offer little or no health insurance, are the ones left behind in such a system. The ACA's Medicaid expansion attempts to address this shortcoming, but the real fix is to move to a universal, single-payer system."
The report lifts up Vermont's new single-payer system, scheduled to come online in 2017. Leveraging the rules and funding from the ACA, Vermont's new Green Mountain Care will provide health insurance to all residents, including undocumented immigrants who work in the state's many dairy farms.
"The fight today is over implementation of the Affordable Care Act, and ensuring that as many Americans as possible get health insurance," adds Miller. "But long-term, we need to look at the real underlying causes, break up concentrated poverty, and begin promoting a more broadly-shared and inclusive prosperity. That's the movement we hope to support with this report." The report includes an array of organizer tools and resources, including workshop modules that can be used at local union halls, worker centers, and church groups to stimulate discussion and action around the racial wealth divide.
State of the Dream 2014: Healthcare for Whom? is available as a free download at www.faireconomy.org/dream.
United for a Fair Economy challenges the concentration of wealth and power that corrupts democracy, deepens the racial divide and tears communities apart. We use popular economics education, trainings, and creative communications to support social movements working for a resilient, sustainable and equitable economy. United for a Fair Economy believes another world is possible. We envision a global society which respects the humanity, rights, and creativity of all people.
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"Members of Congress should understand that approving more military aid could subject them to personal liability for aiding and abetting an ongoing genocide in Gaza."
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Hours after the U.S. House approved legislation that would send billions of dollars in additional military aid to Israel, the country's forces killed nearly two dozen people in Rafah, the southern Gaza city where more than half of the enclave's population is sheltering.
Gaza health officials said Sunday that the weekend strikes on Rafah—a former "safe zone" that Israel has been threatening to invade for weeks—killed 22 people, including 18 children. The Associated Pressreported that the first of the Israeli strikes "killed a man, his wife, and their 3-year-old child, according to the nearby Kuwaiti Hospital, which received the bodies."
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Israeli forces have killed more than 13,000 children in Gaza since October, but the Biden administration and American lawmakers have refused to back growing international calls to cut off the supply of weaponry and other military equipment even as U.S. voters express support for an arms embargo.
The measure the House approved on Saturday includes $26 billion in funding for Israel, much of which is military assistance.
"Just a day after the House voted to send $14 billion in unconditional military funding to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's campaign of death and destruction, he bombed the safe zone of Rafah AGAIN, killing 22 Palestinians, of which 18 were CHILDREN!" U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), one of the 58 House lawmakers who voted against the legislation, wrote on social media late Sunday.
"History books will write about today and the past seven months, and how our nation's leaders lacked the courage and moral clarity to stand up to a tyrant," she added. "Shameful."
The military aid package for Israel now heads to the U.S. Senate, which is set to consider the bill early this week. U.S. President Joe Biden, who has continued to greenlight arms sales to Israel amid clear evidence of war crimes, is expected to sign the measure if it reaches his desk.
"Rather than sending more weapons to Israel, Congress should declare an immediate arms embargo on Israel."
U.S. law prohibits "arms transfers that risk facilitating or otherwise contributing to violations of human rights or international humanitarian law," according to a White House memo issued in February. The U.S. State Department has said repeatedly that it has not found Israel to be in violation of international law, a position that runs directly counter to the findings of leading humanitarian organizations and United Nations experts.
The investigative outlet ProPublicareported last week that a "special State Department panel recommended months ago that Secretary of State Antony Blinken disqualify multiple Israeli military and police units from receiving U.S. aid after reviewing allegations that they committed serious human rights abuses" prior to the October 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.
"But Blinken has failed to act on the proposal in the face of growing international criticism of the Israeli military's conduct in Gaza, according to current and former State Department officials," ProPublica noted.
Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), said in a statement Sunday that senators "should reject sending additional weapons to Israel not only because our laws prohibit military aid to abusive regimes, but because it's extremely damaging to our national interests."
DAWN's advocacy director, Raed Jarrar, added that "at a time when Israel is bracing for International Criminal Court arrest warrants against its leaders, members of Congress should understand that approving more military aid could subject them to personal liability for aiding and abetting an ongoing genocide in Gaza."
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Break Free From Plastic called the negotiations a "make or break" moment for the treaty, which is supposed to be completed in late 2024 in Busan, South Korean. However, civil society groups have expressed concern that oil-producing countries and the plastics industry will water down the agreement and steer it toward waste management and recycling, which has been revealed to be a false solution to plastic pollution knowingly promoted by the industry for decades.
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(Photo: Break Free From Plastics)
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- Bolstering reuse systems for plastics that are non-toxic;
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Rescue workers said they had removed at least 200 bodies as of 12:00 pm local time on Sunday, and they estimated that at least another 200 remained, Middle East Eye reported.
"We found corpses without heads, bodies without skins, and some had their organs stolen," the director-general of the Government Media Office said in a statement shared by Quds News Network.
"Following the mass graves at Al-Shifa hospital, it looks like Israel is a voracious death machine turning hospitals in Gaza into graveyards."
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) withdrew from Khan Younis on April 7. While they occupied the city, they stormed the Nasser Medical Complex in February, arresting several doctors, damaging the structure with shelling, and rendering it unable to function as a hospital.
Al Jazeera reporter Hani Mahmoud said the bodies found in the Nasser grave included children, young men, and older women. Rescues said that some of the bodies they found had been buried with their hands tied behind their backs, according to Middle East Eye.
"Our teams continue their search and retrieval operations for the remaining martyrs in the coming days as there are still a significant number of them," Palestinian emergency services said in a statement shared with Al Jazeera.
The news came as the U.S. House of Representatives voted on Saturday to send another $26 billion to Israel, including for military aid.
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Muhammad Shehada, the communications chief for Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, expressed shock that there was not more media coverage of the Nasser grave.
"I CANNOT find a single headline in any mainstream media about this!" Shehada wrote on social media. "Imagine it was Ukraine? or Israel?"
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