Report Of 880,000 Deaths Due To Racial HealthDisparities
Innae Park - 11/02/2009
Aired on 11PM on 11/2 and at and noon-11/3/09 on
WMDT—Channel 47;
ABC-Affiliate, Salisbury, MD

$1.2 trillion is the estimated ten-year cost for the health care bill in the House of Representatives. Ironically, according to other health officials, that same amount has been wasted through the current health care system, and now the NAACP is calling for change.

Candles were lit Monday night in honor of 880,000 African Americans. According to the American Journal of Public Health, their deaths were a result of stark health disparities among races.

Now those deaths are moving others to call for a healthier future. At the NAACP's 880 Campaign Town Hall, all nine presidents of Maryland's Eastern Shore chapters demanded a solution to stop such deaths.

Edward Lee, the President of the Worcester County NAACP branch said, "They're experiencing challenges of a failed system. A system that is not serving them, nor is it serving their families, and they recognize that it must be changed."
The NAACP Maryland State Health Chair, Isazetta Spikes, identified what she saw as the culprit. "The single greatest factor leading to these disparities is lack of health insurance," she said.

The numbers released from the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene make evident this discrepancy. On the state's Eastern Shore, African-Americans suffer from 20% more deaths from heart disease and 15% more deaths from breast cancer compared to Caucasians. In addition, their infant mortality rate and diabetes mortality rate is two to three times higher than the rates for whites.

However, the NAACP Maryland State Health Chair says blacks are not the only ones negatively affected by these trends. Spikes said, "The current system costs us, at least in inequities, costs us $1.2 trillion dollars in the past three years. So each of us who have insurance pay about $1,000 a year more, for our insurance coverage (and) to cover the people who show up uninsured at the emergency room."

The House version of the health care bill is headed for a vote this week.
While the President has called for expanded coverage, Republicans say the proposed reform would mean more taxes for Americans.