Sponsored by DePaul and Rainbow PUSH, Program also to Include Town Hall Meeting

Legislators and health care advocates will call for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution—one that will provide for a national health care system—during a news conference scheduled for noon, March 5, at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, 930 E. 50th St.

Legislators and advocates including U.S. representatives Jesse Jackson, Jr. and Danny K. Davis; Illinois State Representative Janice Schakowsky; the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., president of PUSH; and Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, will participate in the event, which is part of a daylong program on disparities in health care based on race and economics sponsored by the Health Law Institute and the Center for the Study of Race and Bioethics (RABE), both at DePaul University, and PUSH.

At the news conference, the legislators and advocates also will identify health care agencies that substantially underfund facilities that they operate in African-American and Latino communities while providing considerable resources to facilities they operate in white communities.

Designed to consider some of the obstacles minorities face in gaining access to America’s health care delivery system and disparities in treatment based on race and economics, the program titled “Disentangling Fact From Fiction: The Realities of Unequal Health Treatment,” will open with a congressional town hall meeting at 10 a.m. at PUSH.

Panelists including legislators Jesse Jackson, Jr., Davis and Schakowsky, along with Stern, who heads the largest health care union in the world, will address such issues as using civil rights law as a weapon to combat unequal health care treatment; reparations for past mistreatment in health care; and the exploitation of people of color in medical research. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., will moderate.

“This program is designed to expand the dialogue about one of the most burning health care issues involving people of color today, and to begin to explore solutions that can end some of the disparities minorities encounter in the health care,” said Michele Goodwin, director of both the Health Law Institute and RABE. “It is only by continuing to expose the glaring inequities encountered by minorities that we can begin to really address the problems.”

DePaul’s Health Law Institute was created in 1984 and is the first accredited programs of its kind in the nation to provide students with an extensive curriculum in health care regulation, policy and ethics. It has consistently been ranked among the top 10 health law programs in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. RABE, which was established in 2003, works closely with the institute to address disparities in health care access and delivery based on race, gender and ethnicity through scholarly research and the law.