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IMPROVING HEALTH OUTCOMES FOR BLACK COMMUNITIES
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2021, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Torres) is recognized for the remainder of the hour as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. TORRES of New York. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Ohio
(Ms. Brown) for allowing me the opportunity to speak.
Madam Speaker, no human need is more important than health. Yet, no need is more neglected by America than Black health.
There are two areas on which I am going to offer brief comments. The first is maternal mortality. Among industrialized nations, the United States has among the highest rates of maternal mortality.
The crisis of maternal health represents American exceptionalism in the worst sense of the word. America is exceptionally cruel to Black mothers, who, far too often, face fatal barriers to accessing maternal care before, during, and after pregnancy. Although representing only 13 percent of the population, Black women account for nearly 40 percent of maternal deaths.
There are racial disparities not only in maternal but also infant mortality. The Black community has a maternal mortality rate and an infant mortality rate that are more than double the mortality rates in the White community.
No healthcare program is more critical to maternal health than Medicaid, which pays 40 percent of births nationwide. Attempts by Republican Governors to prevent Medicaid expansion has a disproportionately destructive impact on Black maternal health.
What is most tragic is that most maternal deaths in America are preventable and can be prevented with public investments like the Build Back Better Act. The Build Back Better Act is so urgently needed because it would bring a long-overdue expansion of Medicaid to every corner of Black America.
The second topic is cancer. In 2022, more than 73,000 Black Americans are expected to die from cancer. When it comes to most cancers, Black Americans have the highest death rate as well as the shortest rate of survival.
In the long run, we must develop a cure for cancer in keeping with President Biden's unity agenda. But in the short run, we must double down on early detection. We must invest in the development and distribution of multi-cancer early detection tests.
Black Americans have a far lower likelihood of receiving early detection cancer screening than White Americans. Early detection can mean the difference between life and death. It can mean early treatment, which can prevent cancer from metastasizing beyond the point of no return.
Early cancer screenings and diagnoses are tragically less common in the Black community than elsewhere in America. Even in cases where the White community has a higher cancer incidence, the Black community will nonetheless have higher cancer mortality because of racial disparities in early cancer detection and diagnosis.
Expanding access to multi-cancer early detection tests would bring us closer to closing the racial gap in early detection and in early diagnosis, and in doing so, it would save lives.
General Leave
Mr. TORRES of New York. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include any extraneous material on the subject of this special order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from New York?
There was no objection.
Mr. TORRES of New York. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 168, No. 40
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