Don't use health-reform debate as anti-immigrant vehicle

WHAT kind of country have we become that we stand idly by while Congress makes affording health care increasingly difficult for working families who contribute greatly to our economy?

As longtime providers of health and human services in Seattle and Washington state, we are concerned that the health-care-reform debate in Congress is being shaped by groups using the issue as the latest vehicle to spread their anti-immigrant venom.

Proposals now being considered by Congress would prevent legal residents and nonresidents of the United States from accessing affordable and needed health-care coverage.

Among the worst proposals is one that would leave uninsured millions of U.S.-born children whose parents do not have citizenship papers. Even if their parents are not citizens, our laws consider children born in the U.S. as citizens, and they are both legally and morally entitled to be treated as citizens. It is unconscionable and inhumane even to consider leaving innocent children without health-care coverage.

Today, one in three working Latinos does not have insurance coverage, compared with one in 10 white workers. The reason? Latinos are less likely to have jobs where health coverage is offered, and language and cultural barriers decrease their access to quality medical care that can prevent serious and chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, obesity and cancer.

What is not part of the debate, but should be, is the value of immigrant workers to our economy. In Washington state, the apple harvest is under way. It likely will reap another crop valued at more than $1.7 billion this year. The state is first in the nation in producing apples and several other hand-harvested crops, including sweet cherries, hops and peaches. However, few in Washington, D.C., seem to want to acknowledge, publicly at least, that much of the harvest is made possible by immigrant workers who work hard and pay taxes.

While we enjoy the fruits of their labor, current health-reform proposals seek to prevent undocumented immigrant workers from even paying for private health-care coverage in the new "exchange." There is no subsidy here. They would pay the full price for their private, not public, health-care coverage. A reasonable and fair system would allow them to share the cost of their health coverage with employers, just like other workers in America.

Another poorly conceived "reform" measure Congress is considering would add excessive verification requirements to obtain health-care coverage, making it burdensome and unnecessarily more difficult for everyone. This is the latest tactic of zealots who want to use access to health care as a cure to our broken immigration system — never mind that millions of hardworking men and women, and their children, would suffer.

Such draconian proposals fundamentally undermine the success of health-care reform. Statistics indicate that this population tends to be healthier than their native-born counterparts. Including them in our system would increase the base of payers for insurers and lower health-care costs for everyone in the long term.

Let's build a system in which all families pay their fair share to receive health-insurance coverage, have access to preventive care instead of costly emergency-room care, and where all children in our nation have a chance to grow up healthy and safe.

Then, let's enact comprehensive and enforceable immigration laws that are fair to employers and workers, including immigrants who have contributed for years to our economy and society.

Rogelio Riojas is CEO and president of Sea Mar Community Health Centers and Estela Ortega is executive director of El Centro de la Raza, both nonprofit organizations based in Seattle. Jesus Hernandez is executive director of Choice Health Care Network in Wenatchee.