Why Health Care Reform Could Leave Us All Worse Off
Immigration Matters
New America Media, Commentary, Sonal Ambegaokar, J.D., Posted: Jan 16, 2010
The health care reform bills being debated in Congress threaten to shut out millions of immigrants. But Congress’ exclusionary policies toward immigrants will not simply leave immigrants worse off. They will inevitably jeopardize the nation’s economy and the health of all of us.
President Obama has prioritized health care reform to ensure that millions of Americans have a fair, affordable and efficient health care system. For immigrants, this vision is far from a reality. First, the current health care reform bill treats legal immigrants unfairly. Individuals who have waited years to come to the United States will be required to wait years in order to obtain affordable health care.
Immigrants are generally younger and healthier than the U.S. population at large. However, no one is immune to falling ill or having an accident. The current health care bill would require recently arrived, legal immigrants to wait five years to obtain the only option for affordable health care coverage, Medicaid. While low-income citizens will have access to Medicaid, the most vulnerable among us will continue to wait for affordable health care despite the fact that they pay taxes for the very programs from which they are excluded. There is no sound reason for Congress to discriminate against these individuals and prevent them from receiving basic medical care.
Congress and the White House also took an unprecedented step to prohibit individuals from buying -- with their own hard-earned money -- an American good that could help their families. The Senate version of the health care bill forbids undocumented immigrants from purchasing private insurance at full cost in the newly created insurance marketplaces. As a result, undocumented immigrants as well as their family members, who are often U.S. citizens or legal immigrants, will likely remain uninsured and will be forced to seek care in the emergency room.
The costs of providing health care for undocumented immigrants will not disappear after passing health care reform. It is unlikely that millions of immigrants, whose contributions keep up our standard of living and our economy functioning, will be deported. Instead, the cost of care will become the financial responsibility of the patient, the provider, the local and state governments, and every single taxpayer. Moreover, in order to exclude a few, there will be additional forms, documents, and bureaucrats that the rest of us will be subjected to. Buying the mandated health insurance could feel like a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles. Taxpayers will have to pay millions for this additional red tape and delay, all to keep a few people from buying health insurance with their own money.
Providers, employers, consumers, religious leaders, and state and local governments recognize that these policies are short-sighted and will cost all of us more in the long-run. Policies that attempt to exclude and ostracize immigrants also disproportionately harm all communities of color and immigrant-rich states like California and New York, further widening existing inequities in our nation. Yet because immigrants live in all 50 states, the intended and unintended consequences and costs of these restrictions will be far-reaching.
Ending discriminatory and exclusionary policies in this final round of negotiations is not only a matter of fundamental fairness and sound economics. It is required in order to not leave all of us worse off. Congress has a short window of opportunity to remove the restrictions on legal and undocumented immigrants in the health care reform bill. Doing so will not jeopardize the passage of the bill. Failing to doing so, however, will leave all of us, immigrant or not, worse off and wondering what happened to the promise of health care reform.
Sonal Ambegaokar, J.D., is a health policy attorney for the National Immigration Law Center. IMMIGRATION MATTERS regularly features the views of immigration experts and advocacy groups.
Related Articles:
Would You Wait Five Years for a Doctor’s Appointment?
Immigrants and Health Care: What’s Really at Stake?
Five Years is a Lifetime to Wait for Affordable Health Care
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User Comments
jerseycityjoan on Jan 20, 2010 at 22:22:03 said:
readwithcare:
I think my brain and heart are both working just fine, thank you.
In an ideal world, all people everywhere would have healthcare, no matter what their economic condition.
But in the world we live in, that is not the case. I say the U.S. should not admit immigrants and allow them to go on Public Assistance right away (unless they are refuguees or in other special circumstances).
TThe America taxpayer is not morally or ethically responsible for paying the healthcare bills of everybody.
We have millions of unemployed and employed American citizens who have no healthcare coverage. Demanding that the government treat legal immigrants with sponsors who promised to pay their medical bills better than U.S. citizens is ridiculous.
The U.S. has big troubles and big debts. You will have to stop expecting us to pay for everything for everybody. Get used to it.
Common Sense on Jan 19, 2010 at 12:33:08 said:
Thanks for reminding us that when we fail to cover as many people as we can, we all suffer the consequences. If we want our health reform efforts to actually change the system, we need to make sure we have as many people in the system as possible.
readwithcare on Jan 18, 2010 at 16:58:18 said:
When is blocks immigrant access to care, Congress is bowing to nativist pressure and avoiding tackling difficult public health policy questions. The comments below show how quickly the public turns off its brain - and it's heart - when we consider immigrants.
Contrary to what nativists want us to think, immigrants aren't some "other" who we can demonize. In California, for example immigrants and their children make up over 50% of our population. Immigrants are over a third of our workforce.
Leaving immigrants out of health reform is blocking America from the care we need. We need to look forward, embrace our newest Americans, and create health care system that lets us all thrive together.
Chad Levin on Jan 18, 2010 at 06:55:03 said:
In philadelphia a lot if immigrant workers work here and send their money back home. If the workers were to contribute that money to taxes then they should be able to receive benefits if this bill goes through. I guess this is another amendment that will have months of discussion lol.
www.easytoinsureme.com
Anne Manden on Jan 17, 2010 at 17:10:41 said:
I am so glad to read these comments and realize that I am not the only reader of this site who knows that it would be foolish to give illeagal immigrants the benefits of living in our country, such as government run health care, when they are here aginst the law. Why do the immigration laws, which are there for a reason, always seem to be overlooked on this website? Ridiculous.
jerseycityjoan on Jan 17, 2010 at 00:08:25 said:
I do not understanding these demands for free healthcare through Medicaid for immigrants.
And it would be free. There are not many people on Medicaid who pay income taxes. They are usually exempt due to their very low incomes.
We are going through tough economic times. The idea that we're discriminating against immigrants because we don't allow them to get off a plane and go directly to the Assistance Office to sign up Medicaid is insulting and unfair.
I feel sorry for all sick people. But you cannot expect the U.S. to pay the healthcare costs of people who begged to come here and who are supposed to have family-member sponsors who are financially responsible for them. Maybe we should require immigrants to have health insurance, just as colleges require students to show proof of insurance.
J Cir on Jan 16, 2010 at 13:20:03 said:
Hey, Sonal. You don't even have the spine to admit that American citizens are rightly up in arms about ILLEGAL immigrants whose health care (among so many other things) should not be subsidized by the American taxpayer.
And, yes, Sonal, ILLEGAL immigrants should be ostracized. The trough of taxpayer provided entitlements is finite and should be for citizens and legal residents only. To do otherwise is illogical for it serves as yet another in a lengthening list of goodies that increasingly entice foreigners to enter the US illegally or overstay their visas. Providing illegal immigrants taxpayer subsidized health care will provide another glaring and tantalizing morsel to the rest of the world's poor and uneducated that America's bounty is theirs to be had for no cost once they get past our pathetically unreinforced borders.
The health care bill before Congress will be a financial and logistical debacle if it becomes law. Finding ways to include illegal immigrants will only make a horrific bill that much worse. But, hey Sonal, that's what amnesty will be for, right?
Dave A on Jan 16, 2010 at 10:10:07 said:
The article states "Individuals who have waited years to come to the United States will be required to wait years in order to obtain affordable health care." This is not true. First of all immigrants have sponsors who are required to take care of them. Legal immigrants can get jobs that provide health benefits.
phill/pot on Jan 16, 2010 at 01:42:34 said:
That is very true. But You can get always get a full medical coverage at the lowest price from www.bit.ly/68ShhE if you do your home work you can find the best plan.
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