Healthcare The Final HISPANIC Frontier

By Pedro de Córdoba – Vice President, Client Solutions / eContent DIGITAL

The COVID-19 pandemic should have been a wake-up call. It wasn’t. Covid laid it bare for all to see, and it’s very troubling that the Healthcare Industry doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo. The chronic underinvestment in Hispanic healthcare outreach is affecting the nation’s preparedness for the future. It’s time for the industry to have a moment of reckoning and address this significant deficit before it’s too late to make amends.

Remember When They Were Essential

Amid the pandemic, once perceived as invisible, Hispanics and other workers suddenly became essential. The heroes we relied upon. However, this newfound appreciation was short-lived. Then reality sunk in.

The pandemic stripped away the pretense of health equity, revealing pervasive disparities. Hispanics faced disproportionate job losses, financial instability, and healthcare challenges. According to the Center for American Progress, Hispanics accounted for 23% of the initial job losses while making up only 17 percent of the population. In a Pew Survey from July 15, 2021 on Hispanics and COVID-19, respondents mentioned difficulties paying for medical care (19%), receiving unemployment benefits (17%), and losing health insurance (11%).

The Bounce Back

Despite having borne the brunt of the pandemic, Hispanics kept picking our produce, delivering our food, and doing all those things that kept the country going. According to a 2022 California Lutheran University study, Latinos continued working. “If it wasn’t for the Latino cohort, we wouldn’t be growing as strong or we wouldn’t be growing at all,” principal investigator Dan Hamilton said in an interview.

Eternal Optimists

Despite having suffered the brunt of Covid-19, with more deaths, hospitalizations, and disruption to their lives than most other groups, Hispanics are optimistic. According to a July 2021 Pew Research Study, Latino Americans are more satisfied with the nation’s direction than they have been in a decade. However, the enduring optimism of Hispanics shouldn’t overshadow the urgent need for healthcare reform.

The Rx: Sopita de Pollo With a Sizable Budget Increase

Our community is one of the youngest but far from the healthiest. That combination is very concerning. Our comorbidities are off the chain. You name it, we gotit…and in spades. We need innovative policies,  one that invests in prevention. Instead, we currently have an overabundance of obesity, diabetes, asthma, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, chronic liver disease, and the simmering issue of mental health challenges. The list goes on. President Biden is fond of saying, ‘Don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.’ It’s hard to argue with his logic. What the budget allocations keep telling us is that we are getting some lip service, but nowhere near the type of funding required for the task at hand; to engage with Hispanics consistently creating healthier communities across the country.

During this Hispanic Heritage Month, we must ask why the Healthcare Industry has failed to address years of neglect and underfunding. Benjamin Franklin presciently stated, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” We’ll be right here waiting for ours…where we’ve always been.