It’s impossible to know exactly what shape healthcare will take for Americans as Congress and President Obama struggle with reform measures in the coming months. But one thing is certain: Those who have limited English proficiency will continue to have more health care services they can understand.
Though the U.S. has prohibited discrimination, including language access for limited English proficient persons, since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the reality in the healthcare industry is very different. Whether insured or not, those who don’t speak or read English “very well” tend to have care that’s not as good as those who do. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) reported that in 2005 only 54 percent of Latinos experiencing an injury or illness had timely access to healthcare, compared to 65 percent of whites. And if uninsured, Latinos got care in only 27 percent of cases.
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22
September
The uninsured numbers went down a touch because in 2007 Medicaid expanded. In 2008 they’ll go up as unemployment increases and S-CHIP coverage is cut. Really this doesn’t change too much.
Right-wing nut jobs all over the Internet are saying that uninsurance doesn’t matter. It’s surprising that one of the more sensible right-wingers has joined in and now says that the uninsured don’t exist.
But the numbers are misleading, said John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a right-leaning Dallas-based think tank. Mr. Goodman, who helped craft Sen. John McCain's health care policy, said anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance, albeit the government acts as the payer of last resort. (Hospital emergency rooms by law cannot turn away a patient in need of immediate care).
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28
August
Maggie Mahar is an award winning journalist and author. A frequent contributor to THCB, her work has appeared in the New York Times, Barron's and Institutional Investor. She is the author of Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Why Healthcare Costs So Much, an examination of the economic forces driving the healthcare system. A fellow at the Century Foundation, Maggie is also the author the increasingly influential HealthBeat blog, one of our favorite healthcare reads, where this piece first appeared.
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9
July
Patients who suffer a heart attack often subsequently develop acute kidney injury, a complication significantly increases a patient's risk of death. The finding is the result of new research published in a recent edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Acute kidney injury (also called acute renal failure) leaves the kidney unable to perform its function of filtering waste from the body. As a result, toxins accumulate in the blood, causing damage. In heart attack patients and other high-risk groups, the incidence of acute kidney injury ranges from as much as 10% to 25% -- a number that many researchers believe is unacceptably high.
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10
June