Anti-immigrant sentiment on health care shouldn't be heeded

Democrats should stop pandering to the anti-immigrant crowd on health care.

Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus, D-Mont., is trying to impose additional paperwork on Americans seeking health insurance. He is also trying to effectively ban undocumented immigrants from buying health insurance _ even if they have the money. Further, he also is trying to deny people who have been lawful permanent residents for less than five years from getting government help for purchasing health insurance.

These proposals are not only cruel. They don't even save money. A congressional study shows that the kind of citizen verification paperwork Baucus wants would keep many Latino and Asian-American citizens from getting health insurance. As a result, they wouldn't be contributing premiums to help finance our health insurance system.

And by preventing undocumented immigrants, as well as many lawful permanent residents, from having insurance, Baucus would be forcing them to utilize emergency hospital services. Conditions that could have been treated inexpensively if an immigrant had insurance and saw a doctor early on would become much more grave _ and costly to treat.

Immigrants should not be made into scapegoats. They have nothing to do with why health care is so expensive.

If we really want to get at the major culprits behind this crisis, we should be looking at how the drug and medical device industries charge such high prices. We should check how the private health insurance industry focuses on profits over health care. We should examine the way employers from coast to coast are freeloading off our health care system, letting taxpayer-supported programs pay the costs of their workers' health care.

Republicans are shouting about people from across the border only to try blocking action on health insurance and to let those profiting from the current system continue to rake it in. They'd rather keep getting huge campaign contributions from the likes of drug makers and private insurers than help us get decent health insurance.

Democrats should focus on covering the uninsured and containing health care cost inflation _ and not take another kick at Latinos and Asian-Americans.

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ABOUT THE WRITER

Ramon Castellblanch is an associate professor of health education at San Francisco State University. He wrote this for Progressive Media Project, a source of liberal commentary on domestic and international issues; it is affiliated with The Progressive magazine. Readers may write to the author at: Progressive Media Project, 409 East Main Street, Madison, Wis. 53703; e-mail: pmproj@progressive.org; Web site: www.progressive.org. For information on PMP's funding, please visit http://www.progressive.org/pmpabout.html#anchorsupport.

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