News Item

Government Omits GLBT From National Healthcare Disparities Report

March 12, 2004

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued the first annual National Healthcare Disparities Report (NHDR) required by the Healthcare Research and Quality Act of 1999, and the report has drawn criticism from numerous directions. Many of the recommendations of the researchers on this project were reworded, diminishing the true scope and impact of what underserved communities continue to face.

The report is noticeably silent on healthcare disparities affecting the transgender, gay, lesbian, and bisexual communities. In fact, all references to the GLBT community have been completely omitted, prompting the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC) to call it "erasure" from government programs.

The NHDR covers racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in health care among the general population and among 'priority populations.' The Public Service Health Act defines priority populations as low-income groups, racial and ethnic minority groups; women; children; the elderly; and individuals with special health care needs - the disabled, people in need of long-term care, people requiring end-of-life care, and place of residence (e.g., rural communities).

Despite the efforts of such organizations as the National Coalition for LGBT Health (NCLGBTH), the GLBT community was dismissed with the words, "Although other demographic groups may also suffer from health care disparities, they are beyond the scope of this report."

The initial release of the report in December 2003 was clouded further by the admission by Dept. of Health & Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy Thompson that the Department had wrongfully revised scientific conclusions in the draft National Healthcare Disparities Report. That edition of the report removed the conclusion that racial and ethnic disparities in health care are "national problems" or "pervasive in our health care system" and that carry a significant "personal and societal price."

"What is particularly disturbing is the erasure of anything pertaining to health care needs in the transgender, or gay and lesbian communities," said NTAC Chair, Vanessa Edwards Foster. "By design, the [Bush] Administration is declaring there will be no concern for GLBT healthcare disparities, much less addressing them. They will take our tax money, and essentially tell us that they don't care whether we live or die. They just want our money."

NCLGBTH National Field Director, Donald Hitchcock, has announced a meeting with officials from the HHS on March 15, 2004 to discuss the manipulation of scientific conclusions and the absence of GLBT issues from the report. The meeting is scheduled in conjunction with the National LGBT Health Awareness Week proceedings (March 14-20, 2004).

As the NHDR report states, "Access to health care is a prerequisite to obtaining quality care." Access to caring, tolerant healthcare is as much a problem for many in the LGBT community as it is in the acknowledged priority populations. The issue deserves recognition by our government.

"This is the George W. Bush "compassion agenda," commented Foster of NTAC. "Take their tax money, then "let the queers die." It's a new a disturbing version of Republican humanitarianism."

"They don't want us to even exist at all."