On Jan. 17, private health foundation The California Endowment, announced it would spend $225 million to help the state implement the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare.” The foundation also pledged to use some of the money to help insure undocumented immigrants not covered by the health care law. This move will help undocumented immigrants who are unable to get their own health insurance, and will benefit other California residents.
Anti-immigration advocates and conservatives argue that providing health care to undocumented immigrants rewards lawbreakers and drains taxpayer money. While it’s a strong argument, insuring undocumented immigrants is a necessary evil to maintain healthy communities and keep health care costs low.
Undocumented immigrants do put a strain on our health care budget, but not because they’re getting government-funded health insurance benefits. Instead, the strain is a result of the amount of visits they make to the emergency room; in such cases, hospitals, by law, must accept anyone, even those who can’t afford to pay. In 2007, a RAND Corp. study estimated the cost of health care for undocumented immigrants between the ages of 18-to-64 to be $1.1 billion, mostly coming from unpaid emergency room visits.
Most undocumented immigrants are uninsured because they simply cannot afford health care. Undocumented immigrants account for an estimated 25 percent of all those uninsured in the U.S. Because they’re unable to pay for health insurance, many have to go to emergency rooms mandated by law to accept everyone, because they have nowhere else to go to get access to medical assistance. As a result, emergency rooms have seen an increase in visits. Between 2000 and 2006, Solano County saw a 13.1 percent increase in emergency room visits, with almost 80 percent of the visits classified as non-urgent or urgent with a moderate severity. Because many cases aren’t urgent, most patients are admitted for minor problems, such as the common cold. Unpaid emergency room visits in turn drive up the cost of health care premiums, as well as the cost of using the emergency room.
Undocumented immigrants are not going to “self-deport” the way Mitt Romney proposed last year in the Republican presidential primaries. Massive deportation is just as unrealistic. The reality is undocumented immigrants are not going anywhere and therefore should be insured to help create a healthy environment. Many are employees, school children and neighbors who live in the same community as legal residents and citizens.
Many undocumented immigrants hold jobs with poor working conditions, making them vulnerable to injury and illness. Anyone who is uninsured, regardless of citizenship or immigration status, is less likely to be healthy and more likely to spread germs and illness. If a person is unable to obtain health insurance because he or she can’t afford it, it’s also likely the person can’t afford preventative measures, such as a flu shot or antibiotic prescriptions. I know this dilemma too well. I’m uninsured and have to fight my colds with DayQuil and cope with asthma symptoms without an inhaler.
Regardless of one’s citizenship or immigration status, no one should be denied health care services. Health care is a universal human right for all, and we shouldn’t just sit by and let others die because they don’t have the legal paperwork or can’t afford insurance. We provide much better health insurance to convicted felons who have committed hideous crimes, such as murder and rape. It’s a double standard to complain about health care for undocumented immigrants who are merely trying to survive and at the same time pay no attention to the much larger quantity of tax dollars going to health care for some of the most dangerous criminals.
Immigration is obviously a complex issue that needs to be solved in a comprehensive manner, but we should not sacrifice the health of any individual or community in order to promote “tough on immigration” stances. Such policies cost more taxpayer money in the long-term and jeopardize the health of all individuals in a community.
