DISPARITIES

Black Medicare Patients With COVID-19 Four Times More Likely to Be Hospitalized, Federal Data Shows

Data “confirms long understood and stubbornly persistent disparities in health outcomes for racial and ethnic minority groups,” CMS director says.

New federal data shows Black Americans who are enrolled in Medicare have been four times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than their white peers. Figures from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reveal disparities among other racial minorities, with Hispanic Americans twice as likely to end up in the hospital and Asian Americans 50 percent more likely than white counterparts to be hospitalized. Black and Hispanic people were also found to be most likely to test positive among Medicare enrollees. The CMS data “confirms long understood and stubbornly persistent disparities in health outcomes for racial and ethnic minority groups,” CMS Administrator Seema Verna said Monday.