In August, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump asked Black and Latinx voters, “What the hell do you have to lose?”
Months later, Mr. Trump has vividly illustrated exactly how much people of color have to lose.
He has attempted to impose travel regulations that limit our ability to visit our families, seek economic opportunity, or flee violence. He has reminded us of the precarity of our existence in this country by further empowering Immigration and Customs Enforcement to separate families and rob immigrants of promised protections. He has demonstrated disregard for our educational advancement by allowing an inexperienced lobbyist to defund the public school system our Black and brown children depend on. He has stifled democratic participation by people of color by choosing an overtly racist individual to lead the nation’s Department of Justice.
The GOP’s American Health Care Act would have been yet another assault on people of color in this country. It would have added 24 million people to the ranks of the uninsured, likely widening the racial health insurance gap that Obamacare managed to narrow. It would have cut 14 million people from Medicaid over the next ten years. By cutting care for those who need it, the bill would have awarded an average of $7 million apiece in tax cuts to the country’s 400 wealthiest individuals. In sum, the GOP’s bill to replace the ACA was a massive transfer of wealth from the ill (disproportionately people of color) to the wealthy (who are disproportionately white).
Republicans’ failure to repeal the ACA is thus a victory in the struggle against racism in medicine. The defeat of this uniquely vicious and inhumane bill has not, however, corrected the racist foundations of our healthcare system. White Coats for Black Lives continues to call for several fundamental changes to our healthcare system, including:
Medical school admissions practices that create a physician pool reflecting our nation’s demographics: at least 13% Black, 17% Latinx, and 1% Indigenous people.
The creation of a single-payer health insurance system that eliminates insurance status discrimination as a means of “color-blind” racial discrimination.
Full access to medical care, including specialty care at academic medical centers, for people of color.
We invite others to join us in two current efforts directed towards these goals:
Students across the country are grading their schools using the Racial Justice Report Card. Contact us to find out more about bringing the RJRC to your school.
WC4BL will be joining other national groups on April 8 for Defend Health: Day of Action for Improved Medicare for All. Please let us know if you would be interested in organizing or joining an action at your school.
We have been heartened by our colleagues’ participation in the struggle against Trump and his policies. We look forward to continued collaboration to build a healthcare system that is free from structural and interpersonal racism that truly meets the needs of all of our patients.
