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06/30/2020

CMS: Race, poverty tied to COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations

Race and income are potent forces in determining who among the nation's vulnerable, older population has been infected with COVID-19, according to a federal analysis that lays bare stark disparities in the pandemic's toll (Source: “Income emerges as a major predictor of coronavirus infections, along with race,” Washington Post, June 22, 2020).


The findings from the Federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are based on billing records for people on Medicare who have contracted the virus. They echo the commonly understood pattern that Black Americans are more likely to test positive and be hospitalized for COVID-19 than other racial and ethnic groups. But they also point to the role of poverty as the pandemic has sped through U.S. communities in the winter and spring.


Individuals covered by Medicare who are poor enough to qualify for Medicaid were four times more likely to have been infected or hospitalized with the coronavirus than those on Medicare alone, according to billing records from more than 325,000 cases from January through mid-May.


For men, women and every racial, ethnic and age group of Medicare beneficiaries, the rate of coronavirus cases among those with incomes low enough to be on Medicaid is far higher than for everyone else in the analysis.


Such rates are “drastically higher,” said Seema Verma, administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which performed the analysis. The differences are a “clarion call,” Verma said, for changes that would focus on the health problems that come with poverty, including inadequate housing and access to nutritious food.


The Health Policy Institute of Ohio's COVID-19 resource page includes a section on addressing COVID-19 disparities.

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