Washington DC – The National Health Law Program (NHeLP) commends the announcement of The Healthcare Equality and Accountability Access Act of 2003.

As stated by Mara Youdelman, Project Director of NHeLP’s National Language Access Advocacy Project, “Far too many of our nation’s citizens experience a second class healthcare system because of language barriers and differential treatment based on their race or ethnicity. The Healthcare Equality and Accountability Access Act is crucial to bringing the healthcare system into the twenty-first century where the color of one’s skin or the language one speaks will no longer determine the quality of the health care she receives.”

Nearly 47 million people in this country speak a language other than English at home. Estimates of those with limited English proficiency (LEP) range from almost 11 million people (4.2 per cent of the U.S. population) who speak English “not well” or “not at all” to over 21 million (8.1 per cent) who speak English less than “very well.” To receive effective health care for one’s self or a loved one, it is clear that a person must be able to communicate with her doctor “very well”.

The Healthcare Equality and Accountability Access Act of 2003 recognizes that individuals with limited English proficiency (LEP) continue to endure restricted access to often desperately needed public health, hospital and medical services, and that language barriers in health care can have life-threatening consequences. This bill would offer essential funding to address language barriers and create a dedicated office within the Department of Health and Human Services to coordinate access to oral interpretation and translation of written materials by healthcare providers across the country.

This bill also seeks to identify those situations in which people receive treatment based not on their medical condition but rather on their race or ethnicity, by requiring the collection of racial, ethnic and primary language data throughout federal health programs. While the existence of healthcare disparities is undisputed, the lack of comprehensive data collection requirements has stymied efforts to address the causes of those disparities and develop effective solutions.

For over thirty years, NHeLP has worked to increase and improve access to quality health care for America's working and unemployed poor, women and children, minorities, immigrants, the elderly and people with disabilities.