Letter to Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader and Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader - Warren Urges Senate Leaders to Adopt Bill to Address Health Inequity in the COVID-19 Relief Package
Letter
Dear Majority Leader McConnell and Minority Leader Schumer:
I write to urge you to include provisions addressing health equity in the COVID-19 relief
package currently under negotiation. As you know, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a
disproportionate impact on low-income communities, Tribal nations, and communities of color.
It is essential that the next federal pandemic relief package include funding that directly reaches
these communities and enlists trusted partners to provide services and information that slow the
spread of COVID-19.
From the beginning of this pandemic, people of color and Indigenous people in the
United States have suffered the largest burden of illness, hospitalization and death from COVID19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that American Indian/Alaska
Native people are four times as likely as white people to be hospitalized for COVID-19, and that
Black and Hispanic/Latino people are 2.8 times as likely to die of COVID-19 as white people.1
At the same time, a legacy of discrimination and abuse by the health care system has created
mistrust in many communities of color, which can lead to under-utilization of needed health
care.2 The people who are best positioned to repair this legacy of mistrust are those who know
their communities best. We must empower trusted local leaders to fight COVID-19 in order for
essential public health tools such as information campaigns, testing, and contact tracing to be
effective.
Many Members of Congress have recognized these challenges and proposed solutions. I
recently worked with Rep. Barbara Lee to introduce the S. 4941, the COVID Community Care
Act, which provides grants to faith-based and community organizations, as well as funding to the
Indian Health Service, to conduct testing, contact tracing, and public outreach in medically
under-served communities.
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I urge you to include this bill in the next COVID-19 relief package
1 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "COVID-19 Hospitalization and Death by Race/Ethnicity," updated
November 30, 2020, https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investigationsdiscovery/hospitalization-death-by-race-ethnicity.html.
2 Health Serv Res., "Mistrust of Health Care Organizations Is Associated with Underutilization of Health Services,"
Thomas A. LaVeist, Lydia A. Isaac, and Karen Patricia Williams, December 2009,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2796316/.
3 COVID Community Care Act, S.4941, https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/4941.
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to ensure that the communities most affected by the pandemic have the resources they need to
respond effectively.
Thank you for your consideration of this important issue.
Sincerely,
Source