Asian American California Democrats On Health Care Reform

There has been a lot of talk — some of it crazy — about health care reform in the United States. Personally, I am for health care reform with universal coverage and a public option. I take pride that my parents’ native country Taiwan — a VERY capitalist and market oriented society, hardly socialist — decided to reform their health care system in the mid-90s, reviewing health care systems around the world and picking the best practices from each country, tailoring it to Taiwan’s needs.

Taiwan went from a completely private insurance system where only 50% of the population had healthcare, to a single payer program covering nearly 100% of the citizens, improving health benefits and outcomes with the lowest administrative costs in the world at 2% (versus 20% in the United States) and costing only 6% of GDP (versus 16% in the United States.) Last year, PBS’s Frontline did an excellent profile on Taiwan’s healthcare system.

But here in the United States, healthcare is a mess. As an American, Asian American and Californian, I was happy to hear the Tell Me More program on National Public Radio the other day with Congressman Mike Honda, Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, and very recently elected Congresswoman Judy Chu to discuss the significance of the health care debate for Asian Americans. Dr. Chu (who has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology) highlighted some of the specific health issues in the Asian American community:

“Yes, with regard to the API population, the Asian Pacific Islander population, there is greater risk for certain diseases, like for instance for hepatitis B, where one out of 10 Asian Pacific islanders have the disease, putting them at a one-in-four risk from liver failure or liver cancer, and more than half the estimated 1.5 million carriers in the United States are Asian Pacific Islanders. So here you have a population with a high risk for a particular disease that would constitute a preexisting condition… And they would be denied health care insurance in our system, as it is now. In addition, many APIs don’t even know that they’re carriers, but there’s no preventive screening for them. And with health care reform, they would be able to access that.”

And the current legislation in Congress also seeks better coverage for mental health care. 8Asians has discussed hepatitis a few times. We’ve also blogged about recent suicides at Caltech as well depression amongst Asian American teens. The United States has been trying to get health care reform since the days of Harry Truman; given how partisan the politics of healthcare has been recently, today’s Republicans wouldn’t even approve what Nixon’s proposed reforms today.

(Flickr photo credit: progressohio)