Urge the Inclusion of Immigrants in Healthcare Reform
From the California Immigrant Policy Center:
Dear Colleagues,
A few months ago your organization endorsed a letter to Senators Boxer and Feinstein urging the inclusion of immigrants in health care reform. We are requesting that you join a similar effort once again. As the Congress moves forward with the process of reconciling a new bill there are opportunities to make two changes in particular: 1) To lift the five year bar preventing lawfully present immigrants from accessing Medicaid; and 2) Removing a ban included in the Senate version of the bill that prevents undocumented immigrants from purchasing unsubsidized insurance with their own money through the new exchanges. Attached is a letter to Speaker Pelosi and to Majority Leader Reid asking that these two changes be made. If your organization is interested in endorsing this letter please contact Bill Daley with the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations at: daleybill@comcast.net.
You can also help by contacting your two U.S. Senators and your Member of Congress. Calls to Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid also are helpful. Senator Reid’s phone number is: (202) 224-3542. Speaker Pelosi’s phone number is: (202) 225-0100.
With appreciation,
Cary Sanders
Having Our Say
Isaac Menashe
California Immigrant Policy Center
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi The Honorable Harry Reid
Speaker of the House Majority Leader of the United States Senate
H-232, US Capitol 522 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20515 Washington, DC 20510
Dear Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid:
The undersigned immigrant and civil rights organizations urge you to remedy two critical components of comprehensive health insurance reform impacting immigrant populations.
We believe that health insurance reform should benefit everyone in America, and that reform should create a truly inclusive and accessible health care system in which no one is left out. It is critical that lawfully present immigrants have access to subsidies to purchase insurance on the exchange and are happy that this is included in the Senate health reform bill. However, in order for very low-income lawful residents to be treated equitably in health reform, they must have full access to Medicaid, which offers strong cost sharing and premium protections. We urge you to ensure lawfully present immigrants are treated fairly as you complete the work of drafting and passing comprehensive health insurance reform by using any tools available to add a provision that would permit lawfully present immigrants to access Medicaid if they are otherwise qualified.
Immigrants contribute to this nation’s workforce, pay their fair share of taxes, and pursue citizenship to its fullest potential. Yet, under existing law, many low-income legal immigrants must wait five years to obtain Medicaid coverage. The continuation of the five-year Medicaid waiting period for legal immigrants will make it more difficult for them to afford care while at the same time mandating that they purchase insurance. The five-year waiting period precludes individuals from obtaining necessary services to prevent serious medical conditions from worsening. This type of restriction is not only unfair but also excludes immigrants from a critical safety net that their taxes help support.
We also urge you to amend provisions in the Senate bill that prohibit undocumented immigrants from purchasing unsubsidized insurance products with their own money through new exchanges. These provisions in the Senate legislation will impose a costly new verification system upon each person who seeks coverage through the exchange, whether they are an immigrant or a U.S. citizen. By removing these provisions you will eliminate an unwieldy bureaucracy and an impractical bar to the insurance marketplace.
The existence of these discriminatory provisions will mean that adequate health coverage will not be available to significant populations – especially the four million U. S. Citizen children who live in mixed status families. Retaining these provisions will merely shift costs to the general population and ultimately burden us all with poorly designed policies that undercut everyone’s access to affordable health coverage.
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