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Healthcare
CAPAC Healthcare Taskforce
Chair Rep. Barbara Lee (CA-09)
2267 Rayburn
(202) 225-2661
lee.house.gov
Expand Access to Health Care
- Track implementation of the Affordable Care Act and ensure that the law successfully expands access to health care for uninsured and underinsured Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders.
- Continue efforts to make health coverage truly affordable, by providing comprehensive health and mental health benefits, setting subsidies at appropriate levels for both individuals and families, and capping out-of-pocket costs.
- Work to eliminate health disparities in minority communities through support of the Health Equity and Accountability Act.
- Expand Medicaid eligibility to Compacts of Free Association Migrants.
Ensure Culturally Competent and Linguistically Appropriate Care
- Support programs and research on diseases and chronic conditions that disproportionally affect AAPIs, including Hepatitis B, diabetes and obesity.
- Support legislation that bars discrimination in the provision of health care based on primary language.
- Support the creation of a credentialing body and adequate standards by which to judge the quality of health interpreters and translators.
Improve Data Collection and Health Research
- Improve national data collection by requiring the inclusion of information on race, ethnicity, and primary language spoken based on standards that take into account the diversity of the Asian American and Pacific Islander populations
- Promote diversity among reviewers of health research proposals to ensure that the interests of underserved populations are considered in grant making processes.
- Require ethnic diversity in clinical trials in order to measure the safety and effectiveness of drugs and therapies in a broad range of individuals.
- Fully fund and implement Section 4302 of the Affordable Care Act that strengthens data collection by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
- Fully fund provisions in the Affordable Care Act related to the expansion and creation of Minority Health initiatives within the Department of Health and Human Services.
Prioritize Prevention and Public Health
- Support legislation to create a surveillance system to track hepatitis infection, support activities to promote early detection and education (particularly in vulnerable populations), and support research on improved treatments and vaccines.
- Continue to advocate that CDC prioritizes the prevention and treatment of viral hepatitis and provides strong leadership and sufficient resources to combat the disease.
- Support funding for programs that aim to reduce Cancer Disparities at the CDC, while maintaining funding for Cancer research at the NIH.
- Support funding for programs under the Minority AIDS Initiative and ensure resources for Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.
- Support funding for REACH program within CDC.
- Protect funding for Prevention and Public Health fund that allow communities to develop effective prevention programs.
- Defending the ACA against efforts to reduce women's access to comprehensive reproductive health services.
- Support funding for programs that work to decrease and prevent Cervical Cancer for Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.