Despite President Barack Obama's extensive health care and immigration reforms, including a plan for affordable health care for all U.S. citizens and a path to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, many immigrants may have to wait more than a decade to qualify for health care benefits, the Associated Press reports.
Congress is currently debating the latest proposed health care overhaul, which effectively ensures that a large number of people will remain uninsured as the President's health care law comes into effect over the next year. Proponents of immigration and health care analysts argue that denying coverage to so many people will put the burden of responsibility on local governments, and fear that down the road, older and sicker immigrants will thus require more expensive care.
"All health research shows that the older you get, the sicker you become, so these people will be sicker and will be more expensive on the system," Matthew O'Brien, who runs a health clinic for immigrants in Philadelphia and researches health trends at Temple University, said to the Associated Press.
The Obama administration's Affordable Health Care Act will make health insurance more accessible to millions of people beginning in January 2014, but the proposed immigration overhaul states explicitly that immigrants cannot receive Medicaid or buy health coverage in new health care exchanges for more than a decade after they qualify for legal status, and only then after certain financial and security requirements have been met.
In recent weeks, the issue has received more attention, with some House Republicans making threats to kill the immigration bill unless immigrants are able to pay for all of their health care costs even after they receive green cards or become U.S. citizens.
"That's one of the privileges of citizenship," said Republican Sen. John McCain during a conference call with reporters. "That's just what it is. I don't know why we would want to provide Obamacare to someone who is not a citizen of this country."
Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, however, has said that she wants the government to distribute at least $250 million to state and local governments, as she argues they are the ones that will feel the financial pain of immigrants being left out of the new health care law.
Isabel Castillo, now 28, came to the U.S. illegally with her parents when she was a child. She has not gone for an annual physical exam since 2007, as she consistently debates whether or not her pains warrant a costly visit.
"You are like, 'God, should I go, should I wait? The bill is going to be so high,'" Castillo told the Associated Press. "You just wait until you can't tolerate the pain anymore and then you go to the emergency room."
Immigrants who are U.S. citizens are also affected by health care limitations if they provide for family members who are in the states illegally.
"Every time she gets sick, I have to take her to the doctor. It's really expensive," high school student Jacqueline Garcia of Phoenix said to the Press of her grandmother, who suffers from severe diabetes. "What if my grandmother doesn't make it for the 10 years? I mean, I am always going to be struggling. That's too long." Garcia works two jobs to support her brother and grandmother. She and her brother were born in the U.S. and are being raised by their grandmother, who is not a lawful citizen and therefore does not qualify for Medicaid.
"We aren't saying people shouldn't get health care. The question is who is going to pay for it?" Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a national group that opposes the immigration overhaul, said to the Press. "They would all be on Medicaid or heavily subsidized in some other way."
"The risk of them being uninsured if they are in the country illegally is the same risk of anyone else in the country not being insured," Stephen Zuckerman, a health economist for the Urban Institute, said to the Press. "It's always more expensive to treat people at a more advanced stage of disease."
