Health Disparities in Minority Communities

Floor Speech

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Ms. PRESSLEY. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to be here to mark National Minority Health Awareness Month and to do so shoulder to shoulder with two of my esteemed colleagues, Mr. Clyburn and Congresswoman McClellan. Thank you both for the strength of your convictions.

Mr. Speaker, today in America the color of your skin and the ZIP code you are born into are critical determinants of health.

I represent Massachusetts' Seventh Congressional District where in a 3-mile radius from Cambridge to Roxbury, the Blackest part of my district, life expectancy drops by 30 years.

Now, some have tired of hearing these sobering statistics, but I will enumerate them time and again until they change. If you are tired of hearing them, imagine how tired people are of living them.

These health disparities persist despite the fact that we in Massachusetts are home to some of the finest hospitals and brightest minds in healthcare worldwide.

In the Congressional Black Caucus, we are daily organizing and legislating towards a different vision: one of true healthcare justice, a vision where Black men can grow old, where birth is safe and sacred, where every baby has clean air to breathe and safe water to drink, where health equity is a given and not an afterthought, where Black pain is believed.

As we stay head down working toward that vision, the status quo is stark. In 2023, the Boston Public Health Commission reported that diabetes mortality for Black women was three times that of White women.

The same report detailed that our Hispanic and Latino neighbors were four times more likely to end up in the emergency room for asthma emergencies compared to White residents and our Black neighbors nine times more likely than our White residents.

The disparities don't end there. They persist for cancer, heart disease, life expectancy, and more.

The work to address these injustices is urgent. It is a matter of life and death.

Meanwhile, we have a Trump White House threatening to gut and defund essential health programs. They are gutting Medicaid and tearing away school lunches. They are coming for Planned Parenthood. They are cutting regulations, poisoning the air we breathe and the water we drink. The cruelty is the point.

I recently returned from rural Louisiana where my colleagues and I went behind the wall at two remote detention facilities. These facilities have a history of unjust and unsafe conditions. Behind the wall, as co-chair of the House's Reproductive Freedom Caucus, I met women who were pregnant, entering the latter months of their pregnancy and being denied routine prenatal care. I spoke to a woman diagnosed with cancer who has pleaded to anyone she can reach to spare her life and to deport her. While that may put her safety at risk, she said at least if she is deported, she may be able to get cancer treatment and fight for her life.

Mr. Speaker, what the other side wants is for us to harp on our differences and to get distracted, but let me say this: A threat to one of us is a threat to all of us. A cage is a cage at a for-profit prison or at a detention center.

Everyone deserves to live free from fear. Policy is not abstract. It is not a dusty document on a shelf. Policy determines who lives. Policy determines who dies. Policy determines who survives. Policy determines who thrives.

These disparate outcomes are the result of policy choices. There is no deficit of resource in this country, only a deficit of empathy. I will tell you this: Every day I will use each tool I have to fight for the lives of my constituents, neighbors, and families across this Nation that I have never met. Lives depend on it. Our greatest wealth as a nation is the health of our people, and Black health matters.

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