Introduction
Identification of the Social Issue
Many representatives of ethnic minorities are still unable to receive access to the same privileges or basic services that are available to white Americans, which is identified as discrimination based on race. This negative social process may take different forms, including racial profiling and segregation (Human Rights Watch, 2022). According to Kovera (2019), the former refers to unprofessional, immoral, and sometimes violent actions of law enforcement officers who target individuals for criminal allegations, focusing primarily on their nationality, race, ethnicity, or religious belief. These officers also tend to consider white males innocent when there is a possibility of African Americans being involved in the case (Kovera, 2019). Further, segregation is defined as the purposeful division of people into various ethnic groups, with separate schools for black and white children serving as an example.
Target Population
It is possible to say that all people are severely affected by the identified issue. For instance, many talented African Americans are deprived of the opportunity to participate in valuable projects, which ultimately benefits the whole community (Cox & Edwards, 2022). Then, the described practices add hatred, stereotypes, intolerance, violence, and other adverse attitudes, making societies suffocate in the general negativity. At the same time, the most affected population is ethnic minorities, including African and Asian Americans, Hispanics, Arabs, and Muslims (Lee et al., 2019). What makes the identified issue extremely significant is that such discriminatory experiences reduce the affected individuals’ mental health, prevent them from accessing even basic services like high-quality medical support, and ensure their children that they are less worthy than white kids.
Federal Policies Analysis
The Build Back Better (BBB) Act
Even though not enough efforts are taken to address discrimination and racial inequalities, some quite efficient policies are aimed at supporting ethnic minorities. For example, one such initiative is the House Build Back Better (BBB) legislation, passed as a bill on August 12, 2022, and signed into law by President Biden four days later (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2021). This policy “takes important steps to address racial disparities rooted in this nation’s long history of racism and discrimination, which has created large gaps in both opportunities and outcomes in education, employment, health, and housing” (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2021, para. 1). Through key investments in different areas, the legislation will combat structural and systemic racism and have a profound positive influence on the black community across the U.S.
It is essential to discuss how the Build Back Better Act is funded. Initially, it was offered to support the policy entirely “by tax increases on high earners and corporations,” meaning the “15% tax on large corporations with over $1 billion profits, as well as a 1% surcharge on companies that perform stock buybacks” (Popli & Vesoulis, 2021, paras. 23, 26). Some of these plans appeared successful, and currently, “combined with savings from repealing the Trump Administration’s rebate rule, the plan is fully paid for by asking more from the very largest corporations and the wealthiest Americans” (The White House, 2022, para. 22). As a consequence, the policy not only supports ethnic minorities by providing them better access to healthcare and employment but also this move brings justice to taxpayers.
Further, the supporters and opposers of the BBB policy should be identified. Overall, the Build Back Better Act is a part of the BBB Framework introduced by President Biden. In 2021, a Democrat from Kentucky, John Yarmuth, introduced the bill H.R. 5376. Before the policy was enacted, it was supported by more than three in five U.S. citizens (Hoyer, n.d.). Specifically, 81% of self-identified Democrats and 55% of Independents believed in the effectiveness of the law in combating racism and protecting ethnic minorities (Dandekar & Winter, 2021).
At the same time, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin had doubts about certain aspects of the BBB bill, including its funding and concerns that the policy might lead to worse inflation, and did not believe it was possible to enhance the initiative (Diaz, 2021). Finally, there were many opposers among Republicans (71%) (Yokley, 2021). Despite these inconsistencies, the policy was enacted, and now the country is awaiting its positive results.
The Affordable Care Act
The Affordable Care Act is the second federal policy aimed at combating racial inequalities and discrimination. This policy was “passed into law in 2009, with most major components put into effect by 2014,” and its initial purpose was to improve access to high-quality medical services for all Americans (The Commonwealth Fund, 2020). However, one of the key effects of this policy was the reduction of gaps and disparities in health coverage between black and white Americans. To be more precise, researchers indicate that “the ACA has led to historic gains in health coverage in the U.S. — particularly for black and Hispanic adults,” and the number of cases when these ethnic minorities avoided getting professional medical support because of high costs dropped greatly (The Commonwealth Fund, 2020, para. 4). Therefore, it is possible to say that the policy is quite effective in combating racial inequalities in the healthcare.
This section is devoted to exploring the ways the Affordable Care Act is funded. Overall, the federal government and the states share this responsibility of providing the initiative with the required budget. To be more precise, the ACA is paid for by combining new revenue received from sources like tax increases for high-income taxpayers, together with cuts in government spending (“How Is Obamacare Paid for?” n.d., para. 1). Therefore, one may say that the initiative receives enough financial resources to support racial minorities.
Next, it is essential to discuss the main stakeholders who participated in the creation of the ACA. The bill was sponsored by Democratic Representative Charles B. Rangel and thirty-seven other Democratic and Republican cosponsors (Congress, 2010). A recent poll discovers that “nearly nine in ten Democrats (87%) along with six in ten independents (58%) view the law favorably, while eight in ten Republicans (79%) hold unfavorable views” (Kirzinger et al., 2022, para. 1). More precisely, “Republican congressmen, governors, and Republican candidates have consistently opposed the ACA and have vowed to repeal it” (Dalen et al., 2015, p. 807). Some basic reasons include the government’s role in healthcare and some undesired aspects of the ACA, such as mandatory insurance for everyone.
Jansson (2018) and CDC (2016) Policy Framework
In this section, an analysis of the benefits and limitations of the two identified policies is presented using two different policy frameworks. Firstly, Jansson (2018) outlines the eight tasks of policy advocates that can define the success of policies. These steps are the ethical task, the navigational task, the agenda-setting task, the problem-analyzing task, the proposal-writing task, and the policy-enacting task (Jansson, 2018). It is possible to evaluate the BBB Act and the ACA based on these steps and determine whether any limitations can be identified.
Overall, both initiatives focus on the concepts of ethics and morale, as they aim to achieve equality. They introduce changes at the federal level, which is quite efficient because local changes are not always powerful in combating racism (Jansson, 2018). Furthermore, neither of the policies managed to address the agenda-setting task because the contexts in which they were implemented were not particularly favorable. As mentioned earlier in the paper, some concerns, such as funding or potential complications like inflation, were not thoroughly considered, leading to widespread opposition from Republicans, among others (Kirzinger et al., 2022; Yokley, 2021).
Next, the nature, causes, and prevalence of the issues addressed by the laws are well-defined, and some effective ways to mitigate the problems have also been determined (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2021). However, it is a disadvantage that neither of the policies addresses medical workers’ cultural and moral incompetence, although this is one of the key indications of racism. Both policies underwent numerous revisions, amendments, and additional components, indicating that significant work was required to refine the proposals (Congress, 2010). Therefore, one may say that Jansson’s (2018) framework views both policies as equally effective. The only limitation is that not all concerns were taken into account, which led to many disagreements.
Furthermore, the CDC’s (2016; 2018) policy framework proposes dividing the policy process into five steps: problem identification, policy analysis, strategy and policy development, policy enactment, and implementation. One may argue that specific issues arise in the implementation of the ACA and the BBB Act due to funding concerns that interfere with the process (Dalen et al., 2015; Diaz, 2021). The primary limit of the ACA is that it does not reduce the gaps and disparities properly, although the terms ‘racism,‘ ‘race,‘ ‘discrimination,‘ and ‘equality‘ are mentioned in it numerously (Blackwood, 2020). Unfortunately, the implementation of this act is severely impacted by intolerant and opposing politicians who make sure that ethnic minorities do not receive the privileges and help that the ACA seeks to provide (Blackwood, 2020). The value that the policy brings to people is somewhat improved medical insurance and access to high-quality medical services, as well as reduced stereotypical and biased behavior of providers.
Further, the limitations of the BBB policy are generally based on its common challenges with funding, as well as a vast number of social issues under attention. To be more precise, the BBB Act not only tackles racism and discrimination but also focuses on climate change, employment issues, and many other barriers (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2021). Therefore, the attention may shift from ethnic minorities, and racial inequalities will not be addressed effectively. As a consequence, it is required to eliminate these policy gaps and deficiencies identified in both policies to reduce the levels of discrimination against African and Asian Americans, Hispanics, and other underrepresented ethnic groups. There should be a more precise intervention aimed specifically at supporting persons who are discriminated against based on their skin color.
Using the CDC Evaluation Framework
One objective of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is to protect public health and ensure access to it for ethnic minorities. To ensure that there are no racial inequalities in receiving high-quality medical services, the CDC (2016) proposes an evaluation framework that allows for assessing various policies aimed at reducing discrimination levels. Six domains are included in the framework:
- intended effects and outcomes;
- context and implementation;
- feasibility and acceptability;
- equity;
- costs and benefits; and
- sustainability.
They are discussed in Table 1.
Table 1. Similarities and differences between the two policies
Evaluating the Policies
One may say that both policies are quite promising and expected to provide numerous advantages to the target population. Noticeably, assistant professor Jamila Michener says that “the ACA is one of the most far-reaching policies ever passed, and it aims to affect an arena (health) that is most acutely relevant to people of color” (as cited in Blackwood, 2020, para. 8). Therefore, based on everything mentioned above, the ACA may be considered the best solution to help the target population if the identified issues and gaps are addressed. Accordingly, although Black Americans view the BBB Act as their chance to forget about inequalities, this initiative is not that likely to be successful because inflation, as its complication, is an extremely severe threat.
New Policy Proposal
This new policy should consider the limitations mentioned above and become more effective in reducing racial inequalities. The new law will expand the ACA’s focus and decrease the BBB Act’s focus, meaning that it will cover discrimination in employment and healthcare. One may say that these two areas are principles for not supporting ethnic and racial stereotyping, and, as mentioned earlier in the paper, these two fields most frequently have intolerant practices.
African and Asian Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities face difficulty getting employed because numerous companies either avoid hiring them or offer lower pay (EEOC, n.d.). Further, these persons also prefer not to visit medical professionals because of high costs or the medical workers’ cultural and moral incompetence.These challenges serve as the justification for the creation of a new policy with the ethical rationale because justice and equality should be spread, and humans have the same rights.
The current context for the creation of an anti-racism law is quite favorable because black Americans are in need of such a bill and are likely to support it. While Republicans are usually against such interventions, it is possible to persuade them to vote for it if all the necessary elements are considered in the presentation. Further, Jansson (2018) offers six steps to analyze and propose a new law. The first step is to determine the issue and set goals, so the proposed initiative will aim to:
- Obligate all healthcare agencies and all businesses with more than 15 employees to implement the anti-discriminatory policy and training at least three times a year;
- Forbid all companies to lower payment and other bonuses based on their workers’ ethnicity and forbid medical workers from making judgments and refusing services based on this parameter (EEOC, n.d.; Funk, 2022);
- Ensure that all representatives of racial minorities receive medical coverage as a priority (Funk, 2022).
- Ensure that the focus of this policy is always and primarily on reducing racial disparities and that opposing political figures cannot impact the law’s process.
Support and funding will be sought from the CDC and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Financial resources received from these two organizations will either be enough or will be combined with governmental help and taxes from high-income taxpayers.
One challenge or limitation for an opponent of this policy to determine is the possible increased costs because the required budgeting is expected to be high.The second disadvantage can be the affected rights of employers who must prove that they fired their workers not based on race but for severe reasons. Third, health coverage priority will be given to ethnic minorities, which may negatively affect white Americans. Finally, according to the CDC’s (n.d.) guide, it is possible to say that the short-term goal of the policy is to support racial minorities, and the long-term objective is to change the behavior and attitudes of people.
Regarding feasibility, one may say that Democrats and ethnic minorities are likely to support the policy because they are interested in equality, and Republicans may oppose it.There were similar laws in history, so one may hope this bill will be enacted. Lack of knowledge and force of habit may become specific challenges, but they can be overcome. No severe negative impacts on sustainability and the economy are foreseen. The policy’s enactment and enforcement will take approximately two years, and no unique resources are required. Therefore, the policy is primarily feasible and applicable.
Role of Social Media
To promote the new policy, Twitter and Facebook are beneficial for finding supporters among users of different ages. For example, social media significantly highlighted the need for the ACA and the BBB Act (Focus Washington, 2022; Malena, 2022). Unfortunately, the media can also be used to disseminate fake facts about the laws, which happened in 2016 with the ACA when the Obamacare disinformation campaign was identified (Caller Times, 2016).To avoid the impact of misinformation, social media will be used to inform people about the benefits and limitations of the proposed policy.
Conclusion
To conclude, one may say that the social issue of racial inequalities and discrimination is a severe concern. Although the two existing policies analyzed in the paper bring positive changes, evidence and the two frameworks show that these interventions are not enough to combat racism, primarily in healthcare. Various limitations determined in the ACA and BBB Act are considered when proposing a new policy that not only tackles racism in unemployment and healthcare by increasing people’s access, but also addresses training employees and medical workers.
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