ICYMI – CMS Blog: Establishing the Framework for Health Equity at CMS

View in browser | Distributed by Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services (CMCS) Establishing the Framework for Health Equity at CMS The CMS Framework for Health Equity depicts how CMS will operationalize efforts to achieve health equity across CMS programs in the next decade. By: LaShawn McIver, MD, MPH, Director of the CMS Office of Minority Health Excerpt: For far too long, health care disparities have persisted in the United States. In 1985, the landmark report, titled Report of the Secretary’s Task Force on Black and Minority Health (Heckler Report), marked the first convening of a group of health experts by the U.S. government to conduct a comprehensive study of racial and ethnic minority health and elevate minority health to a national stage. It found persistent health disparities accounted for 60,000 excess deaths each year. Despite progress, health disparities persist, rooted in centuries of structural and systemic barriers in the health care system, and across other systems, having direct impacts on a person’s health. Fast forward to January 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order 13985, Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government,3 and other executive orders focused on equity. For the first time in recent history, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and all other federal agencies, are being charged with a whole-of-government approach to find out what more we can do across our work to identify, understand, and address structural, policy, and operational challenges and barriers to equity.    Read the full blog at CMS.gov .     ###   Get CMS news at cms.gov/newsroom, sign up for CMS news via email and follow CMS on @CMSgov   Stay connected with Medicaid.gov and CMS: