January 12, 2009
Des Moines Register
Insure all kids: Let's mean ALL, including undocumented immigrants [1]
JACK HATCH is chair of the Senate Health & Human Services
Budget committee. JOE BOLKCOM is chair of the Senate Ways & Means
Committee.
Last year, the
Iowa Legislature passed landmark health-care legislation guaranteeing
all eligible children health insurance by 2011. To back this bold plan,
the Legislature appropriated $25 million over the next three years.
This
year, it is time to ensure health-insurance coverage to a group of
children left out of last year's legislation - the uninsured
undocumented immigrant child.
There is opposition to this
proposal. Opponents have asked, "Why should we spend tax dollars to
provide health-insurance coverage to kids who are here illegally?"
Years ago, this same question was asked about providing a public
education to undocumented kids. In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld
the right for undocumented immigrant children to receive public
education.
In
Plyler vs. Doe, the court argued, in part, that denying education to
undocumented immigrant children unduly penalized this group, whose
parents, and not their children, had broken the law. As stated in the
ruling, "the deprivation of education takes an inestimable toll on the
social, economic, intellectual and psychological well-being of the
individual, and poses an obstacle to individual achievement."
As
Justice William Brennan said, "It is difficult to understand precisely
what the state hopes to achieve by promoting the creation and
perpetuation of a subclass of illiterates within our boundaries, surely
adding to the problems and costs of unemployment, welfare and crime."
The
same logic holds true for health coverage. What does the state hope to
achieve by promoting the perpetuation of a subclass of sick kids within
our state, increasing the costs that are associated with disease and
illness, all while putting our own kids at risk?
Let's not
penalize these kids for their parents' actions. Studies have shown that
allowing them access to primary-care health services is the best and
cheapest way to keep them healthy. We need immigrant children healthy
for their own development and so they do not spread illness and disease
in our schools.
We
are already providing health services to undocumented children in the
emergency rooms of our community hospitals. This is the single most
expensive venue to provide health-care services. It is far more
cost-effective to provide care in an organized fashion. When our
emergency-room doctors and nurses render primary care to undocumented
children, it diverts these doctors from rendering emergent care to
others in our community.
Moreover, emergency-room pediatricians
often find themselves in an untenable situation when caring for an
undocumented child who needs expensive, life-saving care. Their role as
a physician and patient advocate leads to conflict between the need to
provide care and the need of the health-care institution they work with
to remain financially solvent. Significant ethical and public-health
consequences result when we deny needed care to these children.
Through
the proposal that will be presented this legislative session, we hope
to join the ranks of other states that have decided to provide access
to health-care programs to undocumented immigrant children.
There
is no justifiable purpose in denying health-care coverage for these
kids. We should not play politics when it comes to children. Whether
children are citizens or undocumented immigrants, they deserve our
support to make sure they grow up healthy.