IV 
116TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 1069 
Declaring racism a public health crisis. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JULY 29, 2020 
Mrs. HAYES (for herself and Mr. CA´RDENAS) submitted the following resolu-
tion; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and 
in addition to the Committee on the Judiciary, for a period to be subse-
quently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such 
provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned 
RESOLUTION 
Declaring racism a public health crisis. 
Whereas since the Nation’s founding, the United States has 
had a longstanding history and legacy of racism, mis-
treatment, and discrimination against African Americans, 
Latinos, Native Americans, and other people of color; 
Whereas the United States ratified over 350 treaties with 
sovereign indigenous communities, has broken the prom-
ises made in such treaties, and has historically failed to 
carry out its trust responsibilities to Native Americans, 
including American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native 
Hawaiians, as made evident by the chronic and pervasive 
underfunding of the Indian Health Service and Tribal, 
Urban Indian, and Native Hawaiian health care, the vast 
health and socioeconomic disparities faced by Native 
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•HRES 1069 IH 
American people, and the inaccessibility of many Federal 
public health and social programs in Native American 
communities; 
Whereas people of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent, who 
became Americans through conquest, were subject to, but 
never full members of the polity of the United States and 
experienced widespread discrimination in employment, 
housing, education, and health care; 
Whereas the immoral paradox of slavery and freedom is an 
indelible wrong traced throughout the Nation’s history, 
as African Americans lived under the oppressive institu-
tion of slavery from 1619 through 1865, endured the 
practices and laws of segregation during the Jim Crow 
Era, and continue to face the ramifications of systemic 
racism through unjust and discriminatory structures and 
policies; 
Whereas before the enactment of the Medicare program, the 
United States health care system was highly segregated, 
and, as late as the mid-1960s, hospitals, clinics, and doc-
tors’ offices throughout Northern and Southern States 
complied with Jim Crow laws and were completely seg-
regated by race—leaving Black communities with little to 
no access to health care services; 
Whereas between 1956 and 1967, the National Association 
for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal 
Defense and Education Fund litigated a series of court 
cases to eliminate discrimination in hospitals and profes-
sional associations; 
Whereas the landmark case Simkins v. Moses H. Cone Me-
morial Hospital, 323 F.2d 959 (1963), challenged the 
Federal Government’s use of public funds to expand, sup-
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•HRES 1069 IH 
port, and sustain segregated hospital care, and provided 
justification for title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 
the Medicare hospital certification program—establishing 
Medicare hospital racial integration guidelines that ap-
plied to every hospital that participated in the Federal 
program; 
Whereas in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson established 
the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, 
which concluded that White racism is responsible for the 
pervasive discrimination and segregation in employment, 
education, and housing, resulting in deepened racial divi-
sion and continued exclusion of Black communities from 
the benefits of economic progress; 
Whereas language minorities, including Latinos, Asian Amer-
icans, and Pacific Islanders, were not assured non-dis-
criminatory access to federally funded services, including 
health services, until the signing of Executive Order 
13166 in 2000; 
Whereas the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act 
(Public Law 111–148) included provisions to expand the 
Medicaid program and—for the first time in the United 
States—established a Federal prohibition against dis-
crimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, 
sex, age, or disability in certain health programs, building 
on other Federal civil rights laws; 
Whereas the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act re-
quired reporting to Congress on health disparities based 
on race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability; 
Whereas several Federal programs have been established to 
address some, but not all, of the health outcomes that are 
disproportionately experienced by communities of color, 
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