Raul Ruiz

The expansion of telehealth has played a critical role in the access to care during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Look, we are so fortunate that we have a president that promotes equity, has an equity task force, has $25 billion in the rescue plan for these communities and focusing on sending vaccines into the retail pharmacies and their QHCs.

But I can tell you first hand from practicing years in the emergency department and as a public health expert in emergencies that the number one driving factor here is systemic inequalities with access to the resources that these community…

I do, Lawrence. I`ve been administering tests in the hardest to reach communities, the farm workers and the homeless since the summer, really taking a community-based approach, working with free clinics, non-profits and other volunteer…

It is critical to make sure the public and providers have accurate information about the vaccine through community public education.

Prioritizing vaccinations for high-risk groups hardest hit by COVID-19 is not effective if these communities are not able to access the vaccine.

The disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color is undisputed.

I will be reintroducing the Environmental Justice Act of 2021, which is with Senator Booker, with codify parts of that Executive order that you just mentioned, 12898.

President Biden's Executive order on tackling the climate crisis at home and abroad takes important steps towards strengthening our environmental justice and public health protections.

After 4 years of constantly defending attacks on clean energy and the environment, this hearing establishes a night-and-day difference in priorities in leadership on climate and the environment.

If we talk about environmental equity, then it is precisely the environmental justice communities that we need to support.

These early climate leadership actions from the President are encouraging, and I look forward to more to come.

We need a science-based public health approach that serves the hard-to-reach communities.

This is not only a moral failure, this is prolonging the pandemic.

So what we are doing now is just not working, and it is disproportionately harming underserved populations and communities of color.

Health disparities are symptoms of a failed healthcare system, and this pandemic has highlighted those inequities and failures.

The current system has left out these communities and rendered them high risk of getting infected and dying to begin with.

And yet this administration and some House and Senate Republicans continue to try to chip away at the ACA, while also attempting to completely overturn the law in court.

You know, as an emergency medicine physician, I know we need more access to care, not less.

It is kind of stunning to me that we still have to hold these hearings on the importance of the Affordable Care Act, that the Affordable Care Act is still under attack, that it is still under the threat of repeal.

I want to also echo the sentiments of our colleague, Congressman O'Halleran, who has been a champion for Indian country and health equity in our Nation.

We have worked closely with labor in making sure that labor has the ability to receive grant funding to train people in renewable energy jobs on-site.

The answer to this climate change is more reliance on fossil fuels.

So let's not blame renewable energy for rolling blackouts.

This is why I introduced H.R. 7849, the Renewable Energy Jobs Act, which would create a Federal grant to fund training programs that help people find good-paying jobs in renewable industries like wind and solar development.