Obama administration gives positive status report for ACA at annual NNPA convention
5th July 2016 · 0 Comments
By Stacy Brown
Contributing Writer
(Special from The Washington Informer) — Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the nation has seen the largest reduction in the uninsured in four decades with more than 16 uninsured individuals gaining coverage.
For African Americans, an estimated six in 10 uninsured Blacks qualified for Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Plan or lower costs on monthly premiums through the Health Insurance Marketplace.
And that was just part of the positive health care news delivered by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [HHS] Deputy Secretary Mary Katherine Wakefield, who addressed the National Newspaper Publishers Association’s annual convention on Friday, June 24, in Houston.
“Before the Affordable Care Act, our health care system was broken,” Wakefield said.
“I’ve been at this long enough to watch the number of uninsured tick up year after year after year and it seemed like nothing could be done to drive the number of uninsured down; even for families with coverage there was worry that they’d lose their coverage even if they’d paid their monthly premium on time every month.”
Wakefield said the Affordable Care Act [ACA] – or Obamacare – is also tackling a major health issue in the Black community: diabetes.
“In the next five minutes, two people will die from diabetes-related causes and that’s very significant,” she said. “Diabetes illustrates some of our country’s deepest disparities.”
“Today, African Americans are almost twice as likely to be diagnosed with diabetes as non-Hispanic whites. They are twice as likely to die from it. Too often it claims a family member or a friend too soon and it’s a particular burden on low-income families but it’s a disease we can manage and effectively prevent,” she said.
Wakefield, who has a long and distinguished career in government and health care and serves as a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and a member of the Institute of Medicine, said information is the key.
She said several programs funded because of Obamacare, such as a YMCA diabetes clinic, have proven successful.
Her address echoed an earlier report by Neil Schoenherr of the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis which highlighted that the ACA has great potential to improve health and health care for people with diabetes.
Schoenherr found that from 2011 through 2012, shortly after the passage of the ACA, nearly two million working-age adults with diabetes lacked health insurance and access to care was a significant barrier among Blacks while proper diabetes care lagged among the insured on all indicators.
The study, “Impact of the Affordable Care Act on Access to Care for U.S. Adults With Diabetes, 2011-2012, was published in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease.
“To the extent that the ACA increases access and coverage, uninsured people with diabetes are likely to significantly increase their healthcare use, which may lead to reduced incidents of diabetes complications and improved health,” said Timothy McBride, co-author of the study and a professor and health economist at the Brown School.
“The objective of the study was to gauge the potential impact of Obamacare on improving diabetes care through improved health-care access by comparing health care and health outcomes of a large national sample of insured and uninsured adults with diabetes,” he said.
“Our results provide a straightforward comparison of the gap between the insured and uninsured before healthcare reform, providing insights about how indicators for these two groups may converge in coming years,” the authors said.
At the NNPA convention, panelist Ken Williams, a retired homicide detective, talked about his struggle with diabetes and the little-known surgical procedure that sent the disease into remission.
“I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes in 2010. I don’t smoke or drink beer and I noticed that I was constantly thirsty,” he said. “I found out about this procedure after trying to talk my wife out of going to this seminar where a doctor was talking about it. I went and found out about the surgery, did some research and underwent the surgery.”
That surgery, vertical sleeve gastrectomy, helps with weight loss – a major concern in the diagnosis and treatment of diabetes, specifically when there is girth in the stomach area. The surgeon removes a large portion of the stomach and it reduces the amount of food an individual can eat by making a person feel full after eating small amounts of food.
“I’m rarely hungry,” Williams said, noting that despite his wife not having diabetes, she plans to undergo the procedure as a preventative measure. “Fifty thousand or so who had the surgery and the majority are successful. It’s one that Blacks don’t know much about. I’m cured and it means you don’t have to lose your eyesight or have an amputation or die early,” he said.
Wakefield noted that Obamacare has opened a world of possibilities in the Black community, particularly for those with preexisting conditions.
“Other accomplishments of the Affordable Care Act is that many families who had insurance before, their healthcare coverage is even better,” Wakefield said. “They no longer have to worry about a cap on their annual coverage or recovery from serious injury or disease.
“Today, people cannot be denied coverage because of cancer, asthma, diabetes and other illnesses and diseases. They can get pre-screened for diabetes and the availability of preventative health services are vital and especially true in the African-American community,” she said.
Still, despite the progress, Wakefield said the drive continues to get African Americans to sign up for health insurance. She said everyone must work to spread the word about coverage options, which include working with states that have yet to expand Medicaid to ensure coverage for as many individuals as possible.
This article originally published in the July 4, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
