Lack of health care coverage for Latinos takes center stage (click here)
By Javier Erik OlveraMercury News
Article Launched: 06/10/2007 01:29:14 AM PDT
Rose Olazcoaga is a San Jose legal secretary who starts every weekday by sending her 15-year-old son to school before she heads into the one-attorney office where she works part time.
Her life is typical, except for one thing: She has no health care insurance.
"Everyone should be eligible for adequate health care," said Olazcoaga, whose employer doesn't provide insurance, but who makes slightly too much money to get public aid. "We work hard, we pay taxes and we should be entitled to universal health care."
The issue will take center stage Tuesday as part of a town hall forum hosted by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists that will tackle the issue, not only for Latinos, but the estimated 47 million Americans without health care insurance.
Association leaders chose the issue to launch its 25th annual journalism conference this week in San Jose because, more than any other social problem, "health care impacts everyone" regardless of ethnicity, said conference co-chair Veronica Villafañe.
But Latinos are among ethnic groups affected the most, with roughly 28 percent of California's Latino population lacking health care insurance coverage - more than three times the percentage of whites without coverage, according to the University of California-Los Angeles Center for Health Policy Research.
That, coupled with a shortage of Spanish-speaking doctors, and a disproportionately higher rate of diabetes for adults and the highest rate of invasive cervical cancer for women in the state, makes the group vulnerable, especially when they are trying to acquire health care that might help prevent such diseases....
By Javier Erik OlveraMercury News
Article Launched: 06/10/2007 01:29:14 AM PDT
Rose Olazcoaga is a San Jose legal secretary who starts every weekday by sending her 15-year-old son to school before she heads into the one-attorney office where she works part time.
Her life is typical, except for one thing: She has no health care insurance.
"Everyone should be eligible for adequate health care," said Olazcoaga, whose employer doesn't provide insurance, but who makes slightly too much money to get public aid. "We work hard, we pay taxes and we should be entitled to universal health care."
The issue will take center stage Tuesday as part of a town hall forum hosted by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists that will tackle the issue, not only for Latinos, but the estimated 47 million Americans without health care insurance.
Association leaders chose the issue to launch its 25th annual journalism conference this week in San Jose because, more than any other social problem, "health care impacts everyone" regardless of ethnicity, said conference co-chair Veronica Villafañe.
But Latinos are among ethnic groups affected the most, with roughly 28 percent of California's Latino population lacking health care insurance coverage - more than three times the percentage of whites without coverage, according to the University of California-Los Angeles Center for Health Policy Research.
That, coupled with a shortage of Spanish-speaking doctors, and a disproportionately higher rate of diabetes for adults and the highest rate of invasive cervical cancer for women in the state, makes the group vulnerable, especially when they are trying to acquire health care that might help prevent such diseases....
