304912
Where Health and Immigration Reforms Intersect: The Role of County Governments in Designing and Delivering Health Services to Immigrants
Since the 1990's,new population trends in immigrant and refugee migration have affected non-traditional gateway states, such as Georgia, Minnesota, Nevada, and North Carolina. During this same time, we have seen national policy disinvest in federally funded health care for immigrants and devolve that authority and responsibility to states and local governments. For instance the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act provides a pathway to insurance coverage for more than thirty million Americans, but undocumented immigrants and legally documented immigrants who reside in the U.S. for less than five years are ineligible for Medicaid and excluded from purchasing any type of coverage through the MarketPlace. Additionally, the lack of a national comprehensive immigration reform plan has encouraged states and localities to take immigrant related matters into their own hands. The health care coverage gap may largely be populated by working-poor immigrants now, yet guidance and best practices for designing effective and inclusive healthcare systems - and appropriately allocating public resources for this purpose - are hard to find. As a result, local governments are facing new challenges in trying to address the public health and welfare needs of their entire communities and taxpayer base, regardless of immigration status. This case study of Bernalillo County, New Mexico provides a deeper understanding of the response of counties to immigrants regarding health and welfare, and the timely opportunity for new approaches in designing the safety-net system for medically underserved immigrant families.
Learning Areas:
Advocacy for health and health educationPlanning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Provision of health care to the public
Public health or related public policy
Learning Objectives:
Identify the role of local governments in making decisions on immigrant policy vs. immigration policy
Describe the key policy provisions that either include and/or exclude legal and undocumented immigrants from receiving health care and social benefits under the Affordable Care Act, Welfare Reform and other related policies.
Keyword(s): Policy/Policy Development, Immigrant Health
Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Leah Stiemel has worked as a community health specialist and health care advocate for 20 years. Her expertise is in developing programs for medically underserved and immigrant communities.
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.