Illegal Immigrants and Health Insurance in California

The following presents the topic of whether or not illegal immigrants should be granted health insurance in California. Carpenter (2000) reported that there are seven million Mexican nationals in the U.S. and many are in the U.S. illegally. This group includes lower-paid workers who require benefits and medical coverage. The California HealthCare Foundation funded a nationwide study over a two-year period to determine the feasibility of cross-border health insurance to provide health insurance for illegal immigrants and their families in the U.S. and Mexico. While the need for health insurance in this group is clear, it remains less clear whether they should be provided U.S. health coverage since it is expensive and lacks federal and state support (Hirota, Garcia, Silber, & Lamirault, 2006). Despite the cost, Guendelman, Schauffler, and Pearl (2001) pointed out that to ignore the contribution of the illegal and legal immigrant and their medical or health care needs is "short-sighted" (p. 263). For example, adults are an important part of the U.S. labor market and the children of these adults need to be immunized against communicable diseases, they require check-ups to ensure normal growth and development, and they need care for illness or injury.

Hirota, Garcia, Silber, and Lamirault (2006) presented a study of an effort by Alameda County, California, to implement a health coverag

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that to sustain the coverage for this population, continued subsidies from private and public funding will be needed. Ku and Mataniá(2001) reported that noncitizen immigrants (undocumented aliens, refugees, and legal permanent residents) are among those who are left out when it comes to health care and insurance.á These authors pointed out that policy changes limit immigrant access to insurance and health care and fewer noncitizens and their children have Medicaid or insurance. Immigration is an important factor in racial and ethnic differences in health coverage. The federal welfare reform law of 1996 (PRWORA) restricted Medicaid eligibility for the immigrant except for emergencies. Prior to this, legally admitted immigrants were eligible for these benefits. While this law did not affect all immigrants, it evoked fears in the immigrant and decreased enrollment in Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program even in legal immigrants. The National Survey of American's Families included a sample of 109,992 noninstitutionalized people under age 65 with over-samples of the low-income population. This survey showed that more than half of the low-income noncitizen adults and children were not insured. Prentic
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1593
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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