Children of Undocumented Immigrants Headed Without Coverage to Children’s Hospitals?
December 19, 2009
Posted by chcablogadmin in : Healthcare Reform
Today I googled a question: “Will the children of undocumented immigrants be covered in health reform?” I searched to see if anyone had calculated the burden placed on children’s hospitals as a result of excluding children of undocumented immigrants from coverage. Right now, children of undocumented immigrants are not covered by the Obama plan. So how many kids are we talking about? According to recent data by the Pew Hispanic Center, illegal immigrants and their children make up 17 percent of the uninsured people in the United States. Long-term CBO estimates predict that 17 million people will remain uninsured under the reforms of a House Bill, nearly half of them would be illegal immigrants.
Section 246 of HR Bill 3200 specifies that no federal payments will be made for undocumented immigrants. However, other than this section, undocumented immigrants are not specifically prohibited from receiving benefits under the health insurance reform plan. A door seems to have been left open! If left out of the once all encompassing plan, these kids will once again arrive on our door step with critical healthcare needs.
It strikes me as interesting that undocumented children have not drawn more attention in the press or from the national lobbying groups. It will cost our hospitals millions of dollars to cover this population! Perhaps it’s time for a few more targeted responses from our hospitals to ensure that coverage of this population is included under health reform.
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