Whenever the word immigrant is mentioned during health care reform it stirs up heated emotions.  On the extremely conservative end, it immediately ignites a controversial topic that undocumented immigrants do not belong in this country and should be deported.  At the other end of the spectrum, liberals argue that immigrants are the backbone to our country and that their work ethic helps drive the U.S economy. 

Lately, whenever the “I-word” is brought up in health care, it automatically refers to the conservative idea of undocumented immigrants, whom they refer to with the derogatory term, “illegal”.  However, I would like to bring up a health care issue that has not received much main stream media or attention: health care for legal immigrants.

As of today, legal immigrants must wait five years to be eligible to receive any assistance from Medicaid.  Eligibility for Medicaid is especially important to the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community since nearly one in four Southeast Asians, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders live in poverty, and only 15% of poor AAPI’s have employer-based coverage.  Thus, Medicaid is a vital source of health care for the AAPI community.  We applaud Congress for lifting this 5-year waiting period for children and pregnant women at the beginning of last year, but what about everybody else?  Legal immigrants should be allowed the same access to affordable health care as any other American citizen, especially when they are paying taxes to contribute to society and working hard to provide for their families.

Furthermore, removing the 5-year waiting period will lower the number of emergency room visits by legal immigrants which is known to drive up the overall cost of health care.  The waiting period discourages these legal immigrants from receiving periodic health care.  Many of them will not see a doctor until their conditions become extremely serious or until it is too late.  The 5-year waiting period is not only an issue of allowing affordable health care to legal immigrants, but also an overall moral and ethical issue of denying a population a right they should already have as legal residents.

There are rumors that negotiations may take place during the upcoming Conference for Amendment 2991 proposed by Senator Menendez (D-New Jersey).  It would allow states to decide whether or not to lift the 5-year waiting period. We ask for Senators Reid and Baucus to uphold their commitments to include this provision in the final health care bill.  Health care reform has taken many shapes, sizes, and timelines and we can only hope that the honest work that many non-profits and coalitions have done for immigrants will pull through.