HEALTH CARE ADVOCATES WARN
LOS ANGELES – California Gov. Jerry Brown’s revised budget proposal for the state has been announced, and health care advocates are not happy.
In Brown’s revised budget, counties across California could lose health care funding that would potentially leave millions of people without health care coverage.
On Friday, May 31, the California Immigrant Policy Center, together with New America Media (NAM), hosted a media briefing with health care industry insiders and advocates, who warned about the effects of Brown’s revised state budget and how it could inadvertently leave millions of Californians vulnerable.
“It is expected that even with the Affordable Care Act, even with the health care reform, and in spite of the immigration debate going on right now, there will be approximately 3 to 4 million Californians who will have no coverage,” Nancy Gomez, Health Access’ program director for Southern California, said.
Even after the enactment of the Affordable Health Care Act (or Obamacare) in 2014, these people could be left without health care coverage because they will not qualify under the new health care law.
The panelists from the media briefing also contended that another reason why so many do not have coverage is that they lack knowledge about the insurance system, as well as the currently existing county health care programs.
Gomez said that it is wrong to assume that only undocumented immigrants would not receive health care insurance.
While the undocumented will certainly not benefit from the provisions of Obamacare, there will also be certain segments of the population who will not qualify under the health care act – like Legal Permanent Residents who are under the five-year residency period.
Federal safety nets
An Op-Ed piece published by NAM pointed out that some may fail to become eligible for Medi-Cal, the federal government-funded heath care program for low-income people. Others who may qualify to buy heath insurance policies could miss the enrollment period or could simply not afford to buy coverage on their own.
The piece also said that there will also be those who would “take a gamble” and not buy health insurance because they are either healthy and young, or they “are just not familiar with health insurance.”
With so many without health care coverage, the burden will fall upon the state’s “traditional safety nets.” These safety nets include public hospitals, emergency rooms, county health centers and community clinics, among others.
This is where Brown’s revised budget becomes critical. His revised budget proposes that changes would be made to the way the $1.4-billion budget will be allocated to California’s 58 counties, in caring for their low-income constituents.
Brown thinks that over time, as more and more of the uninsured residents of California are enrolled into insurance plans under Obamacare, the state would be able to reduce the amount of funding funneled into these safety net programs.
The savings would then be allocated into other things aside from county health programs, officials of the Brown administration said.
Anabella Bastida of the Council of Mexican Federations said that emergency health care facilities or community health care centers have been traditionally the safety net for many Californians – including undocumented students and youth.
“If already, we’re having a challenge in providing services to undocumented people, how is it going to look like now that the budget is going to be cut and these community health centers are not going to have the resources and funding to provide services?,” Bastida said.
Health care and immigration reform
Alvaro Huerta, staff attorney for National Immigration Law Center, said that with health care being a tough point of contention in the House debates on immigration reform, it is expected that there will be “major exclusions of undocumented people.”
These undocumented immigrants – at the end of the immigration reform process, should it happen – could have some kind of lawful status, but will still be excluded from accessing all their care options, Huerta said.
Hyun Kyu Lee, an immigrants rights organizer at the Korean Resource Center, said that to have health care coverage available to many people is “the right thing to do.”
Lee’s mother, who is suffering from digestive problems, is having a hard time accessing health care because she is undocumented and has no insurance.
“People like my parents, they want to give back. They want to contribute to society and they’ve paid their taxes,” Lee added, “ So I think it’s the right thing to do, if we have these benefits available.”
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Weekend June 8-11, 2013 Sec. A pg.1)
