After low participation in the 2000 Census, one Brooklyn neighborhood struggles to provide its predominantly Hispanic residents with basic services. Also: Reporter Annie Correal on The Brian Lehrer Show.
Whether health care reform passes or dies in Congress does not make much of a difference to immigrants, says a report by two progressive organizations in New York.
An undocumented migrant faces the choice of staying in Arizona, where her four children were born, or going back to Mexico to find care for her ailing husband.
Patricia Presa will seek treatment for her uterine cancer in Mexico. (Photos: Valeria Fernández)
PHOENIX, Arizona — A month ago, Patricia Presa learned that she has uterine cancer. She’s decided to go back to her native Mexico to seek treatment there, because she is an undocumented immigrant and can’t afford to pay for health care in the U.S.
“Unfortunately, I need the treatment but I don’t have the money to pay for the expenses. Whether it is the medicine or the doctor’s appointments, each costs me $110,” said Presa, who’s 33. She doesn’t know if the care she’ll receive in Mexico will be better than what’s available in Arizona, but she hopes she can apply for a form of public insurance the country offers to residents known as Seguro Popular. She is married to a U.S. citizen, but because she came across the border illegally she is ineligible to adjust her immigration status or receive health care benefits in the U.S.
Listen to Presa (in Spanish):
[audio:http://feet2worlds.centernyc.org/Patricia.mp3]
The decision by Presa and other unauthorized migrants to return to their home country for medical treatment is further evidence of the link between two hotly contested issues facing Congress and the Obama administration — health care reform and immigration. The ability of undocumented immigrants to access health care services under President Obama’s reform package has stirred controversy and criticism from both ends of the political spectrum. But for the most part, the undocumented themselves have not had a voice in the debate
Sen. Max Baucus presides at the Finance Committee's session on health care reform. (Image: C-SPAN)
As the health care reform bill slogs through the Senate, the Finance Committee may consider some 15 amendments related to coverage (or lack of it) for immigrants, Spanish-language Los Angeles newspaper La Opinión reported Wednesday.
The amendments are related to issues including identity verification, who gets coverage and who qualifies for subsidies to pay for it, La Opinión’s Antonieta Cádiz reported.
Democrats Robert Menéndez, Jay Rockefeller and Jeff Bingaman have introduced five amendments, two of which deal with coverage for immigrant children who are American citizens, and the eligibility of mixed-status immigrant families for subsidies.
