190304 Where are Mexican immigrants in the national health care proposals?

Monday, October 27, 2008: 2:50 PM

Ramon Castellblanch , Health Education, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
     
As the 111th Congress addresses the issue of universal health insurance, one of the major gap groups of uninsured that it needs to address is the millions of undocumented immigrants living the US. How national reform would handle this group is indicated by the way that their coverage was addressed in the 2007 California universal health insurance proposal of Governor Schwarzenegger.

In California, some health access advocates were concerned that explicit coverage for undocumented immigrants would politically doom a universal health insurance plan. So, they looked for ways of providing for the health care of undocumented immigrants short of making them all eligible for entitlement programs like Medicaid. One of the ways that the legislation addressed the issue was through funding of safety net health care providers who serve undocumented immigrants such as community health centers and public hospitals.

But, at the same time that the proposal was anticipating that safety net institutions would care for undocumented immigrants, another part of the Governor's proposal was cutting funding for these institutions on the assumption that universal health insurance would mean that they would have fewer patients. So, it wasn't clear that many undocumented immigrants would end up in the same position they are now, if not a worse one.

This presentation will outline how the health care of undocumented immigrants would have been impacted by the California proposal and its implications for action by the 111th Congress.

Learning Objectives:
As the 111th Congress addresses the issue of universal health insurance, one of the major gap groups of uninsured that it needs to address is the millions of undocumented immigrants living the US. How national reform would handle this group is indicated by the way that their coverage was addressed in the 2007 California universal health insurance proposal of Governor Schwarzenegger. In California, some health access advocates were concerned that explicit coverage for undocumented immigrants would politically doom a universal health insurance plan. So, they looked for ways of providing for the health care of undocumented immigrants short of making them all eligible for entitlement programs like Medicaid. One of the ways that the legislation addressed the issue was through funding of safety net health care providers who serve undocumented immigrants such as community health centers and public hospitals. But, at the same time that the proposal was anticipating that safety net institutions would care for undocumented immigrants, another part of the Governor’s proposal was cutting funding for these institutions on the assumption that universal health insurance would mean that they would have fewer patients. So, it wasn’t clear that many undocumented immigrants would end up in the same position they are now, if not a worse one. This presentation will outline how the health care of undocumented immigrants would have been impacted by the California proposal and its implications for action by the 111th Congress.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I represented AFSCME in negotiations w/ the Schwarzenegger administration
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

See more of: California's Health Care for Immigrants
See more of: Health Equity and Public Hospitals Caucus