ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the strengths and weaknesses of some of the nation’s major health reform proposals from the vantage of their probable impact on access to health care for the large, growing, and highly diversified Hispanic population. Health care analysts have long understood that the quality of health care available to different groups is influenced by their socioeconomic status, specifically their level of education, occupational achievement, and income. One of the reasons for the difficulties Hispanics experience in obtaining adequate health care is the fact that they are seriously underrepresented in the health occupations, particularly those requiring higher levels of skill. Several links can be made between the geographic characteristics and the growing needs and pressures among Hispanics for improved access to health care services. The overrepresentation of Hispanics within the inner cities of metropolitan areas suggests that most of them live relatively close to hospitals and clinics.