Kucinich: SCHIP Bill Fails To Provide Health Coverage For Legal Immigrant Children

Kucinich: SCHIP Bill Fails To Provide Health Coverage For Legal Immigrant Children

Washington, Sep 25 - Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), issued the following statement after voting against the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) conference report today:

“I cannot support legislation which extends health coverage to some children while openly denying it to other children,” Kucinich said. “This legislation is woefully inadequate: and I will not support it.

“Legal immigrant children deserve the same quality health care as other children receive. It is Congress’ responsibility to address the main difficulties that prevent legal immigrant children from gaining access to health care. Today, we did exactly the opposite.

“HR 676 guarantees full health care coverage for all children. When considering a universal health care proposal, HR 676, the Medicare for All bill, is the only health care plan that addresses three important issues: quality, accessibility, and cost. HR 676 stands alone in an increasingly crowded field of efforts to provide health care coverage to all,” Kucinich said.

Kucinich voted for the original House-passed version of the bill because it contained language to grant health coverage for legal immigrant children. However, in today’s bill, this language was omitted.


http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=75275

HR 676 IH: United States National Health Insurance Act (or the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act)

~ excerpt ~

TITLE I--ELIGIBILITY AND BENEFITS

SEC. 101. ELIGIBILITY AND REGISTRATION.

(a) In General- All individuals residing in the United States (including any territory of the United States) are covered under the USNHI Program entitling them to a universal, best quality standard of care. Each such individual shall receive a card with a unique number in the mail. An individual's social security number shall not be used for purposes of registration under this section.


The full text is available @ http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-676

FACTS ABOUT THE Immigrant Children’s Health Improvement Act (ICHIA)


■ Why Legislation Is Needed

Most newly arrived immigrants who are lawfully pre-sent are barred for five years from access to health care under the critical federal programs, Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).* The five-year bar, enacted in 1996, created a hole in a social safety net that had previously treated lawfully pre-sent immigrants and citizens equally. Immigrant health is suffering as a result. The most recent National Health-care Disparities Report, for example, concludes that Lati-nos are victims of widening racial and ethnic disparities in health care.
The proposed Immigrant Children’s Health Improve-ment Act (ICHIA), which has garnered bipartisan support in both houses of Congress, provides a solution for chil-dren and pregnant women. ICHIA should be introduced as part of this year’s scheduled SCHIP reauthorization, which promises to provide access to health care for unin-sured children. For the past decade, newly-arrived immigrant children have been left uncovered. ICHIA would allow states to provide medical coverage to law-fully-present immigrant children and pregnant women under Medicaid or SCHIP, with no waiting period.


■ Primary Health Care for Children and Pregnant Women Saves Money

The goals of the federal Medicaid and SCHIP pro-grams are best served when states can use federal funds to provide basic health services to lawfully present chil-dren and pregnant women. Yet children of immigrants are three times more likely than children of native-born citizens to lack a usual source of health care. Prenatal care is especially critical in preventing, detecting and treating health problems before they become more seri-ous and costly. Immigrant women with no prenatal care, for example, are four times more likely to deliver low birth-weight infants than immigrant women who received prenatal care. Every dollar spent on prenatal care saves $4 in longer-term medical costs.


■ Immigrants Should Benefit from Health Programs Supported by Their Taxes

Immigrants contribute tax dollars to support the federal health care programs that they are barred from using. And compared to citizens’ use of health care services, the average immigrant uses less than half the dollar amount of health care services as the average native-born citizen. Numerous studies have found that the tax payments gen-erated by immigrants outweigh any costs associated with services that they use.


■ Flexibility and Fiscal Relief for States

In response to the lack of equity in current federal health care policy, over twenty states spend their own money to cover at least some of the immigrants who are ineligible for federally-funded health services. ICHIA would expand state flexibility by allowing them to choose the services that best meet their communities’ needs. Both the National Governors Association and the National Conference of State Legislatures support pas-sage of ICHIA.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT
Dinah Wiley, public benefits policy attorney | wiley@nilc-dc.org | 202.216.0261 x.3

* Undocumented immigrants are ineligible for these programs.


http://www.nilc.org/immspbs/cdev/ICHIA/ichia_facts_2007-01-25.pdf