Medicaid Cuts to 72M & maternal, behavioral, preventive, chronic disease and long-term careContact your Congressman and Senator to STOP MEDICAID CUTS for VULNERABLE People

12 House Republicans led by Rep.Valadeo (R-CA) and Rep. Bacon (R-NB) recently wrote a letter that declared they are not supporting any reconciliation bill that cuts Medicaid for vulnerable people.(The Hill, 4.16.25).  The blueprint budget approved this month calls for House Energy and Commerce Committee to locate $880B spending cuts over the next decade, that the group does support targeted reforms to payments, delivery systems, deregulation, and administrative costs.

Medicare Advantage is now the primary form of Medicare coverage in the United States. Over 55% of Medicare beneficiaries1 — more than 34 million Americans — choose Medicare Advantage for high-quality, comprehensive care at a lower cost than Fee-For-Service Medicare with key priorities:

• Promoting affordable health care that delivers better health outcomes, extra benefits, and cost savings for beneficiaries.
• Fighting chronic disease and delivering whole-person health care through innovative supplemental benefits, increased behavioral health supports, in-home
assessments, and strengthened partnerships between providers, plans, and aging organizations.
• Reducing administrative burden through prior authorization improvements and streamlined processes that enable providers, health plans, and stakeholders to deliver timely care.
• Supporting program transparency and accountability with comprehensive transparency standards, oversight, and adherence to in-home health assessment best practices.

The National Hispanic Health Foundation convened the leaders from the groups we have worked with for over 20 years - collaborating on our National Hispanic Health Professional Student Scholarship. Those groups are called the Hispanic Health Professionals Network and all have their own annual conference, chapters, programs and members. The virtual meeting took place on March 5, 2025  and the purpose was to share key ways we can continue to collaborate with the NHHF Focus Areas:
Leadership ---- Research -----Education. NHHF activities include Leadership - nominations of HHPN leaders to commissions as we have done with physicians; Research - continue to support mentoring for clinical researchers targeting Hispanic participation; and Education - nominations of HHPN experts to media partners. Other topics voiced more than once were the need for increased Hispanic health care professional recruiting through pathways such as participating at career conferences and the interest in federal policy advocacy - especially on mass deportation and impending cuts to Medicaid that negatively impact our patients and the Hispanic, poor, rural and other communities. More to come...

If interested in participating with us - send us an email - [email protected]

Today I spent the day at the National Association of Hispanic Nurses Policy Summit gaining knowledge on health policies being debated over the last few years in Congress that impact access and affordability to health care -- obesity disease preclinical and clincal care being covered by Medicare and Medicaid and insurance eventually; discount patient medication programs such as the 340B support to hospitals and their contract pharmacies to pass on to low income patients; and the need to look at chronic disease treatment by physicians without step therapy...as well as prevention support...

And ended the day at the Ambassador from Spain's residence hosting Latino CEOs of national and local organizatoins on a discussion on how to continue to build new efforts in this era with federal government and its bold changes (decreasing workforce and funding) creating uncertainty and anxiety in our communities and organizations, not to mention health care programs that are being scrutinized (nutrition, prevention, DEI, LGBTQ, price controls of medications) for new policy directions that can still advance health equity. 

Diversity is the Foundation of America

The United States of America was founded on the land of indigenous peoples in the 1400's by European explorers, among them Cristopher Columbus for Spain and others who followed from England, Spain, France, the rest of Europe, Africa, and Asia. Mexico was ruled by Spanish and French before independence and mainly occupied what is the western U.S. until 1848. Thus the U.S. population Hispanic/Latinos are about 64% Mexican American,and the others are from Latin America, the Caribbean and Spain and are 1 out of 5 Americans today.  The Spanish language is the second greatest spoken language in the nation and our culture, diet, music, values and our people and their small businesses have spending power that is fundamental to the U.S. economy.

The new policy on meritocracy by the Trump Administration will be an experiment to show that all can become better students and workers if held to one standard. But we know that it is the wealthy and those with legacy and networks who gain acceptances in higher numbers to universities and top jobs in most of our institutions.

September 2024 Reflections

This September I have focused on the National Hispanic Health Foundation presence in our Leadership, Research and Education major activites:

Leadership - 

The NHHF California Leadership Fellowship Washington, DC Institute brought together our Class of 2024 physicians to meet leaders from the Congress and US Department of Health and Human Services, Think Tanks - Cato Institute and the Center for American Progress, Prevention leaders from Tobacco Free Kids and FDA Center for Tobacco Products, partners for Diversity in Medicine: White House Hispanic American Education Initiative and HRSA, Women's Health: ACOG and ACS; as well as Leadership Skills  - Federal Budget Process, Leadership Plans, Conflict Management and of course - executive leadership reflections for the end of the year-long program.  Our Fellows were joined by the NHMA group this year and we look forward to presenting their Policy Analysis Team Projects at the 2025 NHMA Conference.