Immigration And Healthcare
As many as 830,000 non-citizen immigrants
are residents of California. Nearly
one in five non-citizens, under the age
of 65 in California, is covered by Medi-Cal.
Medi-Cal is an essential
source of healthcare insurance for millions of
low-income, elderly, and
disabled residents of California. "Despite its
anti-immigrant reputation,
California has been among the most generous of the 50
states in providing
public aid to needy non-citizens who lost benefits in the
1996 federal
welfare overhaul." Under current law, legal immigrants are
eligible for
Medi-Cal if they meet income and other requirements established by
the state.
Illegal immigrants may obtain Medi-Cal only for emergency medical
services
and for prenatal care. "California, home to about one-third of the
nation’s
immigrants, passed ballot initiatives in this decade targeting
illegal
immigrants, health care, affirmative action, and bilingual
education."
Last year taxpayers spent more than one-hundred million
dollars in aid and
benefits for immigrants. "Governor Gray Davis, in one of
several early
attempts to reverse his republican predecessor’s policies,
wants the state to
spend $60 million on prenatal care for poor pregnant women
who are illegal
immigrants, money that former Governor Pete Wilson repeatedly
fought to cut from
California’s bugdet." "It is estimated that for every
dollar the state
spends on health care for pregnant women, it saves $3.00 in
health care costs
for infants who otherwise would be born with preventable
maladies." The loss
of this health coverage would primarily affect children
and women by cutting
access to essential health services such as prenatal
care and emergency rooms.
This would then result in higher medical costs
(increased cost to taxpayers) due
to people delaying to seek medical
attention and unnecessary hospitalizations.
"Those hurt most by
restricting prenatal care, health advocates said, would be
United States
born children, who are automatically citizens, regardless of their
mother’s
immigration status. Prenatal care is an important tool for
discovering AIDS,
tuberculosis and other diseases." By eliminating health care
for non-citizen
pregnant women, we are endangering the health and lives both the
mother and
the child which is indeed a United States citizen.