Black, Latino healthcare disparities were harmful pre-existing condition before COVID-19
This past year brought a racial reckoning in Washington and across the country. As COVID-19 spread through the Evergreen State, the pandemic exposed shortcomings in the country’s healthcare infrastructure, which failed communities of color.
Eighty one percent of Americans agree the coronavirus crisis has exposed flaws in our current healthcare system, according to new research from Consumers for Quality care with ALG Research and Public Opinion Strategies.
These flaws, combined with existing and well-documented racial disparities, impacted people of color more adversely than their white neighbors as they experienced worse health outcomes throughout the pandemic.
According to the Washington State Department of Health, the pandemic exacerbated underlying and persistent inequities among historically marginalized communities, and those groups were disproportionately impacted by the virus due to structural racism and other forms of systemic oppression.
The latest data from April confirms that people of color continue to be the most negatively impacted by the pandemic. Black Washingtonians are twice as likely as their white counterparts to be hospitalized or die from the virus. Hispanic Washingtonians are over five times more likely to be hospitalized.
Additionally, although 13 percent of the state’s population is Latino, nearly 31 percent of people infected statewide identified as Latino.
The outsized impact of the pandemic on these communities should not be surprising. Racial disparities in quality and access to healthcare have persisted for years in our state.
These systematic disparities have been fueled by adverse social determinants of health among communities of color, such as higher rates of poverty, substandard educational systems, a lack of affordable housing and limited access to healthcare facilities.
Access to quality affordable insurance has also played a role in driving racial disparities, especially for those with pre-existing conditions, such as diabetes, mental health, heart disease and asthma – all of which appear at higher rates among Black Americans.
Recent research has shown that 80 percent of people of color believe insurers are charging so much for care if you have a pre-existing condition, they are basically denying people coverage. What is the point of insurance if it makes care still too expensive to afford?
Despite this increased risk to marginalized communities, the state’s healthcare system has failed to provide communities of color the quality of care their white counterparts received.
These communities experience excessive wait times, hospital admission rejections, denial of access to services, underestimation of symptom severity and fewer health resources in general, which have ultimately led to poor health outcomes.
Additionally, communities of color continue to be concerned with the cost of health coverage. Polling from ALG Research and Public Opinion Strategies shows majorities expressing concerns with the rising cost of insurance; they believe that insurance companies are nickel and diming them with out-of-pocket costs.
Fortunately, state policymakers have begun to improve vaccine distribution in marginalized communities, such as by doing education and outreach through mobile vaccine teams.
Still, much remains to be done to address racial inequalities. Public officials at the local, state and federal levels need to prioritize policies that eliminate racial disparities and all forms of discrimination in healthcare.
Healthcare providers must diversify their staffs to reflect the communities they serve; they must work more proactively to meet these communities of color where they are, rather than the other way around.
They should also help small nonprofits do the groundwork for impending healthcare emergencies, so they can be sustainable when it comes to big challenges like COVID-19.
The future of healthcare in our communities will take planning in many different sectors to make them all fit together.
Policymakers must ensure the post-pandemic healthcare system takes serious steps to eliminate racial disparities in medicine and insurance coverage for the sake of communities that have suffered most over the past 15 months.
Dr. Bernal Baca is executive director of Tacoma-based Mi Centro and chair of the state Hispanic Affairs Commission. He is a retired 30-year faculty member at Yakima Valley Community College and a former member of the Washington State Board of Education.
This story was originally published July 11, 2021 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Black, Latino healthcare disparities were harmful pre-existing condition before COVID-19."