Communities of color face unique challenges during this pandemic. California must mitigate harm

As California faces the prospect of more than half our population being infected by COVID-19, serious consideration must be given to how to support the most vulnerable people, namely those living in poverty and communities of color. They have the most to lose in navigating our sub-optimal healthcare system.

Experts are already predicting that our healthcare system will be stretched beyond its limits, even in the best-case scenario. We are ill-equipped to meet demand given our current healthcare workforce, infrastructure and supply chains.

Although this pandemic knows no boundaries, it will magnify racial and ethnic health disparities that our nation, and our state, have been grappling with for years.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, while access and coverage has improved for all communities of color, most still lag behind their white counterparts in many key indicators of health. And an area of greatest concern is the state’s medically and linguistically underserved communities, which span urban areas like Los Angeles County and rural areas from the Eastern Coachella Valley to Placer County.

While the U.S. Centers for Disease Control have committed to covering testing regardless of coverage or ability to pay for all Americans, treatment is a different story.

Treatment will still require payment, making the people most likely to seek care those that have the coverage to easily pay for it, followed by people with lower levels of coverage with higher deductibles, followed by those with no coverage at all. And while the total percentage of people in California who are covered has risen to 93 percent since the passage of the Affordable Care act, a UCLA study last year found that 13.7 percent of Latinos remain uncovered.

As businesses shut down and people are laid off, we can only expect that more people will lose their employer-sponsored insurance, driving up the numbers of the state’s uninsured for all demographic groups. Adding another layer of complexity to access are the clear ramifications of misguided policy that seeks to penalize immigrants, namely the Trump administration’s “public charge” rule, which deters immigrants from accessing critical social services, including health care.

Put plainly, our state’s most vulnerable will wait until they are at their absolute worst to seek care, which will likely result in unnecessary loss of life during this pandemic.

To make matters worse, California’s physician pool is too small and not diverse enough to adequately serve a state where communities of color make up the majority of residents.

According to research done at the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative, having a doctor that looks and talks like the patient they are treating is critical to good public health outcomes.

Yet, in California, there is a dearth of physicians and other healthcare workers who can meet the needs of our state’s plurality. Currently, there are only 50 Latino doctors for every 100,000 Latino patients. In comparison, the white physician rate is 390 doctors per 100,000 – a staggering eight times higher.

Further, non-English language speakers are underrepresented in California’s current physician workforce. This is especially concerning for Spanish-speaking Californians, who have the lowest physician population ratio in the state.

The actions of our state leaders are setting the tone for the country. Social distancing, decreasing density and prioritizing a comprehensive response are necessary to flatten the curve of this pandemic and protect our front line workers. Yet, we have not accounted for how quickly our deficient health care system would fail in a global pandemic.

In the near term, we must ensure that testing and treatment is available for every California resident who requires it, regardless of immigration status or ability to pay so that Californians know they have a right to care. In doing this, we need to think strategically about how to train a healthcare workforce that looks like our population and is committed to treating these vulnerable Californians.

Our state’s future is dependent upon our ability to ensure the wellbeing of communities of color, especially Asian Americans and Latinos – two of the fastest-growing and youthful demographic groups who represent the majority of our K-12 student population and are critical to the state’s fiscal health as the bulk of California’s workforce.

They also represent many of our most vulnerable residents, and as they suffer, all Californians will pay the price. Now is the time to remedy our broken healthcare systems to fight COVID-19 and ensure we preserve the world’s fifth-largest economy.