FORMER U.S. SURGEON GENERAL DAVID SATCHER TO SPEAK IN NEW YORK CITY on MAY 16, 2007
on “The Role of Health Care Reform in the Elimination of Health Care Disparities.”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 14, 2007
Contact:
Joanne Landy, MPH
Executive Director, PNHP-NY Metro
NEW YORK, NY - The New York Metro Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) will hold an open forum on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 at 7:30pm in the Weill Auditorium, 2nd floor, at Weill Medical College of Cornell University1300 York Avenue at 69th Street in Manhattan. The featured speaker is Dr. David Satcher, former Surgeon General of the United States. Dr. Satcher, who completed his four-year term as the 16th Surgeon General in February 2002, will speak on the topic “The Role of Health Care Reform in the Elimination of Health Care Disparities.”
PNHP has long recognized that members of lower income and/or racial and ethnic minority groups are less likely than others to receive appropriate medical care in the United States. A current Annals of Internal Medicine (issue of April 3, 2007) article, for one example, confirms this fact. The article points out that persons with end-stage kidney disease living in predominately Black inner city neighborhoods and using their neighborhood health care facilities for health care have higher than expected mortality rates than those of more affluent white Americans with similar ailments.
PNHP notes that since lack of health insurance falls disproportionately on minorities and the poor, national health insurance, by guaranteeing that everyone is insured for all medically necessary care, will make a major contribution to addressing health care disparities in the U.S. In addition, according to Oliver Fein, MD, Chair of the New York Metro Chapter of PNHP, “National health insurance is necessary but not sufficient if these disparities are to be eliminated. Broader social measures will be needed to redress the deep inequalities that promote health disparities. Moreover, health care providers will need to take steps to counter the pervasive tendency to give even insured members of minority groups lower quality care.”
Dr. Satcher is highly qualified to address the issue of health care disparities. Having served as Assistant Secretary for Health in the Department of Health and Human Services from February 1998 to January 2001, he is only the second person in history to have held both positions of Surgeon General and Assistant Secretary for Health simultaneously. He is currently Director of the Center of Excellence on Health Disparities at the Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) in Atlanta, Georgia. He occupies the Poussaint-Satcher-Cosby Chair in Mental Health at MSM.
As Surgeon General and Assistant Secretary for Health, Dr. Satcher led the department’s effort to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health, an initiative that was incorporated as one of the two major goals of Healthy People 2010.
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Physicians for a National Health Program is an organization of 14,000 American physicians advocating for non-profit national health insurance. PNHP has chapters and spokespersons across the country. The national organization’s website is www.pnhp.org. The New York Metro Chapter is located at 2753 Broadway, #198, New York, NY 10025. The local website is www.pnhpnyc.org.