Recent health care studies show that the poor and minorities often receive less or substandard treatment from health care providers.

This is why I joined more than 80 members of the House on a bipartisan basis to cosponsor H.R. 3250, the Health Care Fairness Act. This legislation is a response to the disparity in health care between different ethnic groups.

H.R. 3250 will improve minority health by establishing national centers through the National Institutes of Health. These centers will collect more health care data relating to race or ethnicity and will promote medical education to help solve these health inequities.

Wamp said, "We could never have predicted the advances our scientists and doctors have made over the course of the last century. This is why it is even more difficult to understand why there is not a consistently high quality health care system for all Americans."

"The Health Care Fairness Act will work to make sure that all Americans, no matter what their ethnicity or race, will have the best health care possible. There is a need to include minority health as a top legislative initiative, and we must take immediate and decisive action to address the discrepancy in treating minorities."

On July 26th, the House Commerce Committee passed H.R. 3250 by voice vote, paving the way for the legislation to be debated on the floor in the House of Representatives sometime this year.