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Floor Speech

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Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Equal Health Care for All Act, which appropriately frames healthcare discrimination as a civil rights issue.

Inequitable access to quality, affordable healthcare is the result of centuries of structural and systemic racism, all of which continues to result in poorer health outcomes in communities of color.

Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous individuals are disproportionately more likely than their White counterparts to suffer from a range of illnesses, from asthma, to heart disease, to prostate cancer.

Inequitable outcomes are not exclusive to racial trends, however. Women are both diagnosed with and die from lung cancer at a higher rate than men, even when they don't smoke. And while rates of lung cancer have dropped for men, they have risen for women.

The Equal Health Care for All Act seeks to address structural inequities by establishing a legal definition of ``inequitable healthcare'' and creating a formal process to enforce the standard.

The bill would also establish a grant program to assist hospitals and other providers in implementing reforms to ensure equitable care and would establish a permanent Federal Health Equity Commission to study and make recommendations on health equity issues.

I would like to thank my coleads, Senators Booker and Schiff, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to enact the Equal Health Care for All Act as quickly as possible. ______

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