With mere hours until Governor Glenn Youngkin announces his budget amendments for the 2025 session, he doubled down on his disinterest in racial bias training for Virginia doctors despite his admission that such biases exist.
“We know there’s a disparate outcome between Black women and white women,” Youngkin said Tuesday morning at a press event to support his new maternal health initiatives ahead of the 2025 session.
It equates to what many in the maternal health community have long recognized: disparities between communities of color and their white counterparts continue to influence medical outcomes.
But Youngkin vetoed an effort that would have required racial bias training for medical professionals when it passed the legislature in 2024. When asked about whether his understanding of racial disparities may influence his support for a similar effort this year, he said the discrepancy needs to be addressed but: “I think the right way to address it is to use the data we’ve gathered and analyzed to put forth specific initiatives,” he told reporters.
Senator Mamie Locke, who carried the bias training bill last year and plans to bring it again this year, wasn’t impressed.
“People are dying as a consequence, that’s the part he’s ignoring,” she said.
But this year the bill will enter the chamber with at least some early bipartisan support. Brunswick County Delegate Otto Wachsmann was among Republicans who voted to advance the bill to the 2025 session during a committee meeting Tuesday.
“It’s not necessarily [that] Republicans are against the cultural awareness training, but it's putting another burden on providers,” he said.
Wachsmann said he wasn’t sure of his final vote on the issue, but he also wasn’t the only Republican to signal an openness for the effort to get a proper legislative hearing.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
