Last November KoreAm ran a cover story about the impact health care reform could have on thousands of Korean Americans who are currently uninsured or those who are barely able to pay their high premiums for insurance. Korean Americans have one of the highest uninsured rates at about 31 percent—and many community advocates say that astounding figure is actually conservative.
Now, four months later, after a long road that has seen some passionate debate and a ton of misinformation sometimes passed on by elected officials, we may finally have a vote on whether our nation will change our troubled health care system that currently sees 46 million Americans without coverage.
I have to admit, after conducting some interviews for our health care reform story last fall, I was surprised to learn that there were so many young KAs for whom health coverage was a great concern. You often assume it’s the folks in their 20s and even early 30s who might oppose the idea of having to get insurance because they tend to be healthier. But several of the young people I interviewed fell into that “pre-existing condition” category, whether it be for a heart murmur or depression, and as a result, had trouble accessing health coverage even if they were willing to pay for it.
Unfortunately, these are the faces we often don’t see in the mainstream news coverage of this issue. But they are among the 30 million Americans who could be added to the insurance rolls should reform pass.
So let’s get our voices out there. Korean Americans, do you support health care reform?
