May 17, 2022
Dear Senators and Members of Congress,
Independent Women’s Voice, the leading national women’s organization dedicated to expanding support for common sense public policies among women, independents, millennials, and Gen Z, is proud to support the Prevent Racism in Medicare Act.
Unfortunately, healthcare has not been immune to political movements which have attacked various institutions with the claim that they are “systemically racist.” While health disparities do exist, they are not due to physician bias. But medical schools and medical research are quickly turning towards preparing future doctors for and promoting social activism instead of basic medical science. Instead of pushing doctors to provide a high quality of care for all their patients, physicians are being pushed to racially discriminate in the treatments they offer to their patients.
This is inexcusable and is putting the health and safety of Americans at risk.
This bill explicitly prohibits the Secretary of Health and Human Services from selecting certain activities relating to the development of anti-racism plans as clinical practice improvement activities under the Medicare program. With no credible evidence of racist practices among doctors, any sort of anti-racism plan will instead cause all patients to suffer and will further erode trust in our public health institutions.
We thank Representative Palmer, along with Senators Cramer and Hoeven, for their leadership on this issue and urge you to join them in their efforts to protect physicians and our healthcare systems from radical racial ideology.
Respectfully,
Hadley Heath Manning
Vice President for Policy
Independent Women’s Voice