Health disparities bill has support of activists, Deval

Yawu Miller

More than 200 activists convened at the State House last week to rally in support of legislation aimed at eliminating health care disparities in Massachusetts.

The activists lobbied support for House Bill 2234, an Act to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities in the Commonwealth. As its name implies, the legislation is aimed at ensuring that black patients receive the same level of health care as whites.

The legislation would create a state Office of Health Care Equity charged with coordinating the efforts of public agencies to eliminate disparities. The Disparities Action Network — a coalition of researchers, advocates and health care providers — drafted the bill.

Supporters of the legislation expressed optimism that the bill will not only pass the state Legislature, but will also make a real difference.

“We are here because we want to get something done,” said state Rep. Byron Rushing, a sponsor of the bill. “We want an Office of Health Care Equity that will be in charge of ending disparities in the state.”

The support of Rushing and other prominent legislators bodes well for the bill. Lawmakers have already convened a Special Committee to Eliminate Health Care Disparities, co-chaired by state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson and state Rep. Peter Koutoujian.

“My goal is this: I want to see people die of old age,” said Wilkerson. “We’re all leaving here. How we leave here will depend on how well we deal with this issue of health disparities.”

The legislation is also receiving support from the corner office, as evidenced by the appearance of Gov. Deval Patrick and state Secretary of Health and Human Services JudyAnn Bigby.

“You have a governor who is on your side and is all about action,” Patrick told the activists convened at the State House.

Health care providers and public officials have long known that blacks, Latinos and Asians face significantly higher disease and mortality rates than whites. A 2002 study commissioned by Congress put the issue in the spotlight nationally.

While much of the debate around health care disparities has centered on access to health services, a study released this year found that unexamined racial biases of health care providers are a reliable indicator of how well their black patients will fare.

The study, conducted on trainee doctors in Boston and Atlanta, utilized the Implicit Association Test to measure race bias and then tested the trainees’ willingness to administer an anti-clotting drug to a hypothetical patient — a 50-year-old black man complaining of acute chest pains.

That study helped confirm what many African American health care activists have suspected all along — that racism is an underlying cause of disparate health outcomes.

“It’s not about health care access,” said Elmer Freeman, executive director of the Center for Community Health Education, Research and Service. “It’s not how you’re covered. It’s how you’re treated.”