Thread: Immigration issue is a red herring, Raul Reyes

Immigration issue is a red herring

Commentary By Raul Reyes

Enough about Joe Wilson. The South Carolina Republican congressman's recent outburst calling President Obama a liar for saying his health care plan denies coverage to undocumented workers has obscured the sad truth about Latinos and health care.

How dire is the problem? The National Council of La Raza, the USA's largest Latino advocacy group, has found that Latinos are more likely to be uninsured than any other racial or ethnic group. About one in seven Americans are Latinos, but Latinos account for one in three of the uninsured (though, granted, those numbers include undocumented immigrants). Why such a high rate? Financial constraints, language and cultural barriers, and the fact that we are less likely to receive employee-sponsored health coverage.

What would be tragic is if the side issue of coverage for undocumented workers helps derail this serious attempt to fix the system for all Americans. Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus all favor reform benefiting only citizens and legal residents. One section of the House bill is explicitly labeled "No Federal Payment For Undocumented Aliens."

Just to be safe, the Senate is tweaking its proposal to close loopholes, including considering additional requirements for proof of citizenship.

This should be enough to satisfy even the toughest critics. And for those who can't get past the thought that illegal immigrants want to get free government benefits, consider that in 2005, the U.S. spent $8.3 million to tighten Medicaid's citizenship verification processes. Two years later, a House committee reviewed the results in six states and found a total of eight illegal immigrants had been caught unlawfully enrolled in the program. So enough with the hyperbole.

The undocumented tend to avoid interaction with the government out of fear of detection. In a 2006 study, the Kaiser Commission found that non-citizens received less primary care than citizens, and yet were still less likely to use the emergency room.

Wilson's unseemly eruption demonstrates that anger over illegal immigration isn't going away. Still, the question of coverage for the undocumented worker would be better settled with immigration reform.

I understand that there are some folks who like to blame illegal immigrants for all the ills in American society. But the responsibility for our broken health care system is ours, and ours alone.

Raul Reyes is an attorney in New York and a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.

Posted at 12:16 AM/ET, September 25, 2009 in Forum commentary, Health care/Insurance - Forum, Race Issues/Civil rights - Forum, Reyes

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