Health Care Access for Undocumented Immigrants

As Ruth puts it, illegal immigrants should be accorded health care to reduce the overdependency and investing of public funds in chronic illnesses for those that do not afford care. Indeed as Ruth notes, the increasing burden of health insurance can be related to the lack of access to health services for the immigrants. The ACA, although meant to make health care affordable and accessible to all, excludes illegal immigrants (Beck et al., 2017). This practice has led to more burden to health reforms and access to many people who may be in need of treatment or specialized care.

I agree with Ruth that allowing the immigrants to access health services via ACA can help in reduction of insurance premiums and emergency expenditure. Additionally, the larger population is protected against infectious diseases when care is accessible to all. Research indicates that most illegal immigrants cannot take up insurance as they fear discrimination or deportation when their status is revealed (Joseph, 2017). Consequently, most are brought in for treatment at the end stages of their lives which further burdens the government. Indeed, more funds should be directed to ambulatory and preventive care rather than such cases which can ve dealt with of refoirms are made.

Undocumented immigrants, projected to be 11.2 million, have few options regarding health care access (Joseph, 2017). Although emergency services are accorded to everyone, illegal immigrants can only be stabilized and released without further care. Is this morally right? I believe that the citizenship status of an individual should not determine the right to health care services. As Ruth proposes, there should be reforms to reconsider the position of the ACA on the illegal immigrants. This will benefit the population in the long run as private insurance plans are prohibitively costly (Joseph, 2017).

References

Beck, T. L., Le, T. K., Henry-Okafor, Q., & Shah, M. K. (2017). Medical care for undocumented immigrants: national and international issues. Primary Care: Clinics in Office Practice, 44(1), e1-e13.

Joseph, T. D. (2017). Falling through the Coverage Cracks: How Documentation Status Minimizes Immigrants’ Access to Health Care. Journal of health politics, policy and law, 42(5), 961-984.