Jack & Jill Politics

The Tea Party calls it “socialism” and “Obamacare”. We call it “good lookin’ out”. In the past, African-Americans have been among the unhealthiest Americans due to lack of access and lack of redress in a hostile market.

Cord Jefferson at TheRoot.com breaks down specifically how the Affordable Care Act benefits black folks. These advances — which may mean the difference between a walk in the park with your Auntie Mama and her having her foot cut off due to “the sugar” — are at risk if we don’t vote in this election. (Yes, that was a Cleveland Show reference.) The Tea Party not only doesn’t care about our health, it doesn’t even care about Americans’ health in general. All boats are lifted through healthcare reform, including your family’s well-being.

Barack and Michelle Obama want you to be less fat, be less sick and get more checkups. Sounds more like care than communism to me.

I’m including a slice below but you should definitely check out the whole piece for the full deets.

From TheRoot.com:

Many of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act are just starting to be implemented — and black people may benefit more than most.

On March 23 of this year, after months of heated conservative backlash at town halls and Tea Party rallies nationwide, President Obama signed into law HR 3590, which enacted sweeping changes to America’s health care system. Not a single Senate or House Republican supported the bill.

With 46 million Americans living without health insurance, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, health care reform’s real benefits breached divisions between classes, genders and races. Nevertheless, African Americans are still suffering disproportionately with the problems of this country’s broken health care system.

In 2009, 19 percent of blacks did not have health insurance, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number for whites was 10.4 percent in 2007. What’s more, 48 percent of African-American adults suffer from chronic diseases, compared with 39 percent of the general population.

With a series of steps set to roll out over the next five years, HR 3590, also called the Affordable Care Act, is designed to eliminate these and other disparities. And in fact, many of the law’s provisions have already begun to be implemented.

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