WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris introduced Monday that the Biden administration is investing $1.5 billion from the coronavirus assist package deal to handle the well being care employee scarcity in underserved communities.
The funding will go to the Nationwide Well being Service Corps, Nurse Corps and Substance Use Dysfunction Therapy and Restoration packages, all federal packages that provide scholarship and mortgage repayments for well being care college students and employees in the event that they pledge to work in underserved and high-risk communities.
“Our nation should put money into a well being care workforce that appears like America, and supply entry to equitable well being look after all Individuals,” Harris stated.
The cash, which incorporates funds from the American Rescue Plan and different sources, will help greater than 22,700 suppliers, marking the most important variety of suppliers enrolled in these packages in historical past, based on the White Home. It is available in response to suggestions laid out earlier this month by the White Home’s COVID-19 Well being Fairness Job Drive, which issued a report outlining how the administration might tackle systemic inequality within the well being care system.
The COVID-19 pandemic has each highlighted and exacerbated well being care disparities for minority and underserved communities. In response to an evaluation by the Kaiser Household Basis, over the course of the pandemic, minority Individuals have seen larger numbers of instances and better charges of dying than their white counterparts.
“COVID-19 didn’t invent well being disparities. Simply ask any healthcare skilled and she is going to let you know: Well being disparities existed lengthy earlier than this virus reached our shores. Well being disparities stem from broader systemic inequities,” she stated.
It’s simply the newest funding from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, handed in March of this 12 months, geared toward addressing well being disparities amongst minority and underserved communities. Earlier this month, the White Home introduced a further $785 million in funding for federal packages geared toward enhancing range within the public well being workforce and supporting folks with disabilities.
In the course of the Monday occasion, Harris pushed for passage of President Joe Biden’s practically $2 trillion social security web and local weather change package deal, which would supply funding to quickly shut the Medicaid protection hole and broaden entry to medical health insurance market subsidies via 2025.
Harris stated the package deal would additionally make a historic funding in maternal well being “to handle the tragedy of black maternal mortality in America.”
Black girls within the U.S. are about 3 times as more likely to die from a pregnancy-related trigger as others, partly due to racial bias they might expertise in getting care and docs not recognizing danger elements similar to hypertension.
