Warren, Mass. Democrats call for racial data on Medicare coronavirus patients

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is pressing the Trump administration to release data on the races of all Medicare coronavirus patients.

In a letter sent Thursday, Warren, along with fellow Massachusetts Democrats Sen. Edward Markey and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, said information about race and ethnicity is important in order to track health disparities.

“As preliminary evidence suggests that the coronavirus pandemic is causing disproportionate harm in communities of color, it is essential to bring to bear all the data collected by the federal government to identify and support affected communities,” the lawmakers wrote to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma. 

During a White House briefing earlier this week, Verma pledged to release Medicare claims data on COVID-19 testing, treatment and fatalities, broken down by race and ethnicity, gender and area of the country.

Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, said national data would be made public as soon as there’s enough “to make a meaningful statement.” 

During the briefing, Fauci said “health disparities have always existed for the African American community,” and this crisis is just “shining a bright light on how unacceptable that is.”

The lawmakers said Verma should release the data on a weekly basis throughout the duration of the coronavirus public health emergency. 

The calls for national data on racial disparities have grown stronger recently as the information released by a handful of states has shown Latinos and black people have significantly higher mortality rates than white people.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, communities of color are likely to be disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. People of color are more likely to have chronic health conditions, such as heart disease and asthma, that put them at higher risk for complications from the virus.