Dalila Aragón en medio de su esposo y su hija, ha estado durante años sin seguro médico debido a su estatus de indocumentada.
In California, tens of thousands of undocumented mothers will spend this Mother’s Day without health insurance. Studies show if parents don’t have health insurance, it affects the health and wellbeing of their children as well. To change the situation, for the second consecutive year, a bill is being debated in Sacramento to extend healthcare to all, no matter their immigration status. This would mean expanding the public health insurance program Medicaid, known as Medi-Cal in California, and allowing enrollment without subsidies in the health insurance marketplace, Covered California, for a million undocumented immigrants, including mothers and children. Araceli Martínez has more from Los Angeles, California.
Dalila Aragon, a 37 year-old mother of three, has had some kind of fungus on her fingers for several years. She thinks it was caused by contact with the liquids she uses in the dry-cleaning business where she works in Los Angeles. She has never seen a doctor about the problem, because she is undocumented and doesn’t have health insurance. Sometimes, she goes to a community clinic.
Dalila Aragón muestra sus manos con hongos debido a los líquidos químicos con los que trabaja en una tintorería de Los Ángeles.
“I only have family planning, so I go to get my pills every three months. I have high cholesterol, too. Every six months I am supposed to go to a check-up. But that’s the only thing that I have covered. In general, I can’t go to the dentist or to the eye doctor or anything. I would have to pay a lot,” says Aragón.
Researchers from the University of California at Berkeley and the University of California Los Angeles estimate that there are almost 2 million undocumented immigrants like Dalila Aragón who do not have health insurance.
State senator Ricardo Lara is trying to change that with the bill “Healthcare for All.” If it becomes law, it would expand the MediCal program to approximately 1 million undocumented immigrants, and those who could pay would have access to the state’s health insurance marketplace.
Aragón’s eyes light up when she hears talk of a bill that would give healthcare to everyone. “I guess if you are right with the government and you pay taxes and you don’t have a record or anything… wouldn’t that be nice. But we’re waiting,” says Aragón.
Another mother, María Hernandez, who is 34, has spent more than half her life in the United States, and her three children were born in the country. Frequently, she suffers from backaches and allergies because of the substances she uses for cleaning. She says with health insurance, she could do a lot of things she can’t do now.
María Hernández, inmigrante de Oaxaca, lleva más de 20 años sin cobertura de salud.
“Go to the dentist, to get mammograms, other things that one sometimes get sick from, aches in the bones. These are all expensive [without insurance],” says Hernández.
According to a state senate fiscal analysis, offering MediCal to undocumented immigrants could cost between 150 and 750 million dollars a year. But organizations like the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, or CHIRLA, say that the state is already spending a lot more than that, about 1.4 billion dollars a year, on attending undocumented immigrants in the emergency room.
“The state is already spending that money,” says Joseph Villela, lobbyist for CHIRLA. “So what this legislation is saying is let’s do something better and give coverage to people without documents, which will end up being cheaper than to continue paying just for emergency coverage”
Joseph Villela, cabildero de Chirla
For the moment, the bill is archived until later this month, when it will be able to be considered, taking into account the state budget. Governor Jerry Brown is about to announce his revised budget. The author of Healthcare for All, state senator Ricardo Lara, hopes resources will be assigned for healthcare for undocumented immigrants.
“California is the seventh largest world power,” said Lara in a Spanish-language interview provided by his office. “Immigrants contribute to that power. So we have to make sure we are giving them the option of paying for health insurance, and for those who cannot pay, give them MediCal.”
Proponents of the bill say they hope this Mother’s Day will be the last one that undocumented mothers of California have to spend without having access to health insurance.
Marcela Ramos, inmigrante mexicana lleva toda una vida sin seguro de salud
Marcela Ramos, another mother of three who works in childcare and has been here for 23 years, also hopes so.
“We work all our lives, and we pay taxes. Whether we have papers or not, we all pay taxes. And we made that money. They don’t just give it to us for free. So we also have the right,” says Ramos.
