U.S. Hispanics riled over immigrants’ healthcare exclusion
By Tim Gaynor
President Barack Obama’s signature battle to overhaul the United States’ $2.5 trillion healthcare industry to extend coverage and lower costs for Americans has met fierce opposition from Republicans.
But a move by Democrat backers to exclude 12 million illegal immigrants from buying health coverage and restrict the participation of authorized migrants has drawn the ire of U.S. Hispanics — a bloc that overwhelmingly turned out to vote for Obama in last year’s election.
Hispanic lawmakers and activists are riled by the bill pushed in the U.S. Senate by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, which denies illegal immigrants the option to buy health insurance and places a five-year wait period on legal immigrants before they can access health benefits.
“When we effectively bar the immigrant community from buying private insurance, we force them further into the shadows of our society, and we relegate them to emergency room care at the highest cost to taxpayers,” Rep. Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat, told a conference call with reporters this week.
Obama has so far been popular with U.S. Hispanics. His backing for comprehensive immigration reform, which seeks to allow millions of illegal immigrants in good standing a chance to pay fines and become citizens, helped win him two-thirds of the Latino vote in last November’s election.
But activists say the push to exclude undocumented workers from paying for healthcare — even for their U.S. born children — is testing support for Obama among Latinos, who make up 15 percent of the population and 9 percent of the electorate.
“The Latino vote was based on promises that a new administration would lead us out of the darkness and finally bring about immigration reform,” said Lorena Colin of the Mexican American Coalition for Immigration Reform, a Chicago-based pro-immigrant grassroots group.
“Instead, we are seeing the administration allowing undocumented immigrants to become scapegoats and the targets of widespread derision and hate in the healthcare debate,” she added.
Reverend Luis Cortés, Jr., meanwhile, the president of a prominent Hispanic evangelical network Esperanza said he was disillusioned with the Democrats, and warned that Hispanics voters would punish lawmakers who denied immigrants care in the midterm Congressional elections in 2010.
“All we can do at this point is look at each local election, one by one, and punish those individuals-regardless of their party-who deny rights to legal immigrants and children, as well as the poorest in our nation, the undocumented,” he said.
Source: Reuters
President Barack Obama’s signature battle to overhaul the United States’ $2.5 trillion healthcare industry to extend coverage and lower costs for Americans has met fierce opposition from Republicans.
But a move by Democrat backers to exclude 12 million illegal immigrants from buying health coverage and restrict the participation of authorized migrants has drawn the ire of U.S. Hispanics — a bloc that overwhelmingly turned out to vote for Obama in last year’s election.
Hispanic lawmakers and activists are riled by the bill pushed in the U.S. Senate by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, which denies illegal immigrants the option to buy health insurance and places a five-year wait period on legal immigrants before they can access health benefits.
“When we effectively bar the immigrant community from buying private insurance, we force them further into the shadows of our society, and we relegate them to emergency room care at the highest cost to taxpayers,” Rep. Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat, told a conference call with reporters this week.
Obama has so far been popular with U.S. Hispanics. His backing for comprehensive immigration reform, which seeks to allow millions of illegal immigrants in good standing a chance to pay fines and become citizens, helped win him two-thirds of the Latino vote in last November’s election.
But activists say the push to exclude undocumented workers from paying for healthcare — even for their U.S. born children — is testing support for Obama among Latinos, who make up 15 percent of the population and 9 percent of the electorate.
“The Latino vote was based on promises that a new administration would lead us out of the darkness and finally bring about immigration reform,” said Lorena Colin of the Mexican American Coalition for Immigration Reform, a Chicago-based pro-immigrant grassroots group.
“Instead, we are seeing the administration allowing undocumented immigrants to become scapegoats and the targets of widespread derision and hate in the healthcare debate,” she added.
Reverend Luis Cortés, Jr., meanwhile, the president of a prominent Hispanic evangelical network Esperanza said he was disillusioned with the Democrats, and warned that Hispanics voters would punish lawmakers who denied immigrants care in the midterm Congressional elections in 2010.
“All we can do at this point is look at each local election, one by one, and punish those individuals-regardless of their party-who deny rights to legal immigrants and children, as well as the poorest in our nation, the undocumented,” he said.
Source: Reuters
Tags: healthcare, hispanic, latino, reform
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Rogelio Orta on -
It's about time we really show that Latinos are not up for grabs...No Democrats or Republicans can have our votes for granted anymore! What about the respect and concern they should show for our community? We all should form a common block, to punish the vicious attitudes from those that attack Hispanic Americans. We are all an integral part of America. We are committing to the greatness of this the nation, and we are not moving anywhere else! Undocumented, legal residents and U.S. born Latinos deserve better than the unjust treatment some members within our "barrios" are facing daily.
Let's all remember who is for us or against us, and then vote next year for the politician or politicians that will really make a positive difference in our lives. We don't need special treatment, we are not looking for a hand out...WE WANT RESPECT!
Saludos,
Rogelio
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Permalink Reply by Alberto on -
There are individuals who want the backing of the Hispanic community for his/or her benefit. He/she wants to be top dog. He/she first gets the legal people with businesses and well off in his team. These are the people that will reel in a vast amount of Hispanics that will be brainwashed to vote the top dog into a government position of power for the benefit of those close to him/or her. If I continue with my explanation, this response would be so long that you would simply just stop reading it.
Those people who are in his circle are the ones that will be reaping the benefits of his/her agenda once he/she makes it into a government position. They are his/her work force to bring in the Latino community he/she needs to have so that once in a government position of power, he/she can demand what he/she wants to accomplish, his/her own personal agenda, which has nothing to do with the Latino community. Once in a position of power in the government, he/she is now a member of the government elite and wields the Latin Community's backing against the government to achieve his/her purposes for his benefit and those in his circle. There are sheep and then there are leaders. But understand we live in a brutal world and almost all that make it to the top, unfortunately forget where they came from.
As a person that has flown the world and as a veteran, I will tell you what happens: I know Christian and Non-Christian American Citizens, hiring Illegals instead of Citizens, Legal Residents and Work Permit holders to have a bigger profit margin. These Legal Citizens, hiring illegals, are law-breakers and are perpetuating the Illegal Immigration issue, taking advantage of those coming into the country illegally, looking for work, and screwing all those CITIZENS and LEGAL IMMIGRANTS out of their proper wages by offering a lower wage to the Illegal immigrant who will accept it because he/she has no choice, being here illegally. The Legal person has to then compete with the lower wageworker if he wants to work.
In the statement Rep Luis Gutierrez D-Ill.: "When we effectively bar the immigrant community from buying private insurance, we force them further into the shadows of our society, and we relegate them to emergency room care at the highest cost to taxpayers,”
Rep. Gutierrez is not stating ILLEGAL community... If an individual is in the USA illegally, he/she should not have any options to buying private insurance. Illegal is illegal.
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