Health News
- As Medicaid Eligibility Expands In Kentucky, So Will Subsidy Of Undocumented Immigrants' Health Care
As Washington lawmakers struggle to find consensus on immigration reform, U.S. taxpayers continue to shell out money to subsidize health care for illegal, undocumented immigrants. Those expenses will probably increase, with the full effect of the Affordable...
- Don't Chip Away Chip
Leaders, from Illinois and across the country, are calling on Congress to continue funding the Children?s Health Insurance Program by highlighting its success in reducing the number of uninsured children and warning that these children may lose coverage...
- How The Affordable Care Act Helps Immigrants
There are at least 40 million immigrants in the United States, accounting for about 13% of our country?s total population. The Affordable Care Act (ACA, also known as ObamaCare) helps immigrants by providing new and strengthening current health insurance...
- Chicago Orgs Kick Off Project To Educate Asian Americans About The Aca
There remains considerable misinformation and ignorance about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) among limited English-speaking Asian Americans and other immigrant groups regarding ACA and how it will impact them. Provisions of the health care reform law that...
- Starting July 1 In Illinois: "some" Kids Instead Of "all Kids"
In 2010, a study conducted by the University of Illinois at Chicago showed that over 95% of Illinois? kids had insurance coverage, making Illinois a state with one of the lowest rates of uninsured children in the nation. Much of this success can be attributed...
Health News
Toward a More Inclusive, Healthy Union
Two and a half years ago Congressman Joe Wilson called out across the well of Congress, "YOU LIE, Mr. President." If the never-ending news cycles leave you struggling to recall exactly what President Obama was accused of lying about, it was the inclusion of undocumented immigrants in the yet-to-be-passed healthcare reform bill.
Thanks to this comment and the resulting uproar when healthcare reform begins in 2014 undocumented immigrants will be barred from purchasing healthcare on the regulated insurance exchanges -- even with their own money. They won't qualify for Medicaid, contrary to a popular myth. Moreover, many of their legal immigrant spouses, parents, cousins, etc. will also be ineligible for Medicaid. The unbelievably complex rules for immigrant healthcare could easily result in one family having their various members regulated by five separate sets of eligibility rules.
Eventually our nation will need to decide if we really want the people who clean our office buildings, care for our children, serve our food, and whose children attend school with our children to have significantly worse healthcare. Meanwhile, down in Florida, Governor Romney and Speaker Gingrich argue over the laughable notion of "self-deportation" and spar over who the anti-immigrant is.
But Illinois can move ahead, and make sure that healthcare reform is both rational and humane. While we cannot change the enormously complicated federal eligibility guidelines, we can reduce the confusion for families here in Illinois and promote healthcare access to the fullest extent possible.
We can ensure that immigrant families understand what their new healthcare options will be in 2014 by developing an infrastructure of community organizations to assist immigrants to understand their complicated eligibility and guide them towards other options if they don't qualify for or can't purchase health insurance. We must make sure we have a strong, stable safety net that includes not just preventative care but the acute care that left untreated results in high medical bills and throws many low-income individuals into medical debt and hurts our overall economy.
For all those who are still learning English, we can make sure the system supports provides language access so that patients can navigate their healthcare options. Finally, here in Illinois we've made a strong stand that all children should have access to healthcare. Let's keep it that way.
For more info on immigrants and the ACA, check out this IHM Resource.
Written by Joshua Hoyt, Director at the Illinois Coalition for immigrant and Refugee Rights. Follow Joshua Hoyt on twitter at www.twitter.com/icirr
This post originally appeared on the Huffington Post.
- As Medicaid Eligibility Expands In Kentucky, So Will Subsidy Of Undocumented Immigrants' Health Care
As Washington lawmakers struggle to find consensus on immigration reform, U.S. taxpayers continue to shell out money to subsidize health care for illegal, undocumented immigrants. Those expenses will probably increase, with the full effect of the Affordable...
- Don't Chip Away Chip
Leaders, from Illinois and across the country, are calling on Congress to continue funding the Children?s Health Insurance Program by highlighting its success in reducing the number of uninsured children and warning that these children may lose coverage...
- How The Affordable Care Act Helps Immigrants
There are at least 40 million immigrants in the United States, accounting for about 13% of our country?s total population. The Affordable Care Act (ACA, also known as ObamaCare) helps immigrants by providing new and strengthening current health insurance...
- Chicago Orgs Kick Off Project To Educate Asian Americans About The Aca
There remains considerable misinformation and ignorance about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) among limited English-speaking Asian Americans and other immigrant groups regarding ACA and how it will impact them. Provisions of the health care reform law that...
- Starting July 1 In Illinois: "some" Kids Instead Of "all Kids"
In 2010, a study conducted by the University of Illinois at Chicago showed that over 95% of Illinois? kids had insurance coverage, making Illinois a state with one of the lowest rates of uninsured children in the nation. Much of this success can be attributed...