HHS unveiled both an HHS action plan and a national stakeholder strategy for reducing health disparities among racial and ethnic minorities.

“We need to make sure we eliminate disparities in America,” said Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.), at a briefing launching the two plans. For too long, racial and ethnic minorities “have had less access, less treatment and less research,” Cardin said.

The HHS Action Plan to Reduce Health Disparities relies heavily on provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The five overall goals of the plan are: to transform healthcare; strengthen the national health and human services workforce; advance the health and well-being of the public; implement a new health data collection and analysis strategy; and increase efficiency, transparency and accountability of HHS so that assessments of policies and programs on health disparities will become a part of all HHS decision-making, according to HHS.

The National Stakeholder Strategy for Achieving Health Equity's five major goals are to: transform healthcare; strengthen the national health and human services workforce; advance the health and well-being of the public; increase efficiency, transparency and accountability of HHS so that assessments of policies and programs on health disparities will become a part of all HHS decisionmaking; and improve data availability, coordination, utilization and diffusion of research and outcomes.