HEALTH CARE AND IMMIGRATION REFORM

During the last few months, the debate over health care reform has been increasingly linked to the immigration issue. Opponents of Comprehensive Immigration Reform have sought to tar health care legislation with the claim that illegal immigrants will receive benefits at taxpayer’s expense.

There is in fact a major problem with some of the bills circulating in Congress but it has nothing to do with benefits going to the undocumented.

As of now about 7 million legal immigrants in the United States do not have any health insurance at all. In addition, most of the 4 million U.S. citizen children of undocumented parents are also not insured. These realities, not the false claims of immigration reform opponents, require action.

As Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) recently put it, "We understood that undocumented immigrants would get no taxpayer subsidy, and that there would be a verification system… ‘We said 'okay.' Bitter pills were swallowed." But after Rep. Joe Wilson’s "You Lie" outburst during President Obama’s recent speech to Congress, "… the White House started saying that illegal immigrants cannot even purchase health care on the free market health care exchange." Rep. Gutierrez went on to address the U.S. citizen children of illegal immigrants who are also at risk of not receiving health care, although legally entitled to it. "Last time I checked 3rd and 4th graders don't go around buying health insurance for themselves, they get it from their parents…To deny the parents is to deny their children."

Rep. Gutierrez is not alone. Senators Rockefeller (D-WV), Menendez (D-NJ) and Bingham (D-NM) co-sponsored legislation that would eliminate the current 5-year period legal immigrants must wait in order to participate in government programs such as Medicaid. Currently tax-paying legal permanent residents and other legal immigrants fall under existing rules that bar them from health coverage for the five year period.

"Five years is a long time to have to rely on the emergency room for expensive coverage (that we all pay for) and it is a lifetime for a child. It is fiscally and socially wise to include all tax-payers equally in a reformed health insurance system," said Ali Noorani, Executive Director of National Immigration Forum. (www.immigrationforum.org )

Once again, we are calling for deep, thoughtful conversations about these issues informed by careful study and concern for the common good. We believe these conversations will help inform congressional deliberations as they go forward.