Democrats: cover legal immigrants in Obamacare, give illegal aliens or it’s racist!

U.S. Rep. Michael Honda (CA-15), chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, is leading efforts to contain health care costs for all Americans and boost public health by including legal and undocumented immigrants in health care reform legislation. Joining Rep. Honda are leaders within the Congressional Tri-Caucus, the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), and other Members of Congress. These congressional leaders are sending two letters to key players in the reform debate in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The two letters emphasize the impact of immigrant inclusion on containing health care costs for all Americans, increasing preventive care services, and streamlining the delivery of health care. One letter urges elimination of the five year waiting period for legal immigrants in the Medicaid program and opposes imposition of further barriers on legal immigrants seeking to access federal health programs in new legislation. The second letter opposes the Senate proposal that would bar undocumented immigrants from purchasing unsubsidized health insurance coverage.

Logic.

In response to Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus’ much-publicized proposal to exclude undocumented immigrants from purchasing health insurance coverage and legal immigrants here less than five years from accessing tax credits, said Rep Honda:  “American taxpayers are already paying for the health care costs of immigrants when they use emergency and social services. Americans currently pay $56 billion annually to ensure the uninsured’s use of emergency care. The fiscally prudent response, then, would be to seize the opportunity to have the uninsured help pay for their own health care, instead of spreading the cost to others — something I have pushed for as part of comprehensive immigration and health care reform efforts.”

Quotes from the letters include: “The unnecessary and burdensome waiting period has increased racial and ethnic health disparities, and thwarts the goal of health care reform. It is not only fiscally shortsighted, but also arbitrary and fundamentally unfair to deny health care coverage to legal immigrants.”  These requirements are “cumbersome, ineffective, expensive, and create administrative barriers that prevent citizens from getting the health care they need. Disease and illnesses do not discriminate based on immigration status, and neither should America’s health care policy.”

2 Letters

From 24ahead(Sen. Max Baucus) to expand coverage in his proposal to include all legal immigrants and to drop verification language in the legislation that would prevent illegal immigrants from obtaining coverage.

thanks to Delaware Bob pointed these two videos out.


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