New Law Expands Health Care for Immigrant Children: A Preview of Health Care Reform Debate?

This is an excellent example of why SCHIP is needed and who it will help. I imagine some of these points will be in the health reform package that will be coming soon. DP

By Eduardo A. de Oliveira, EthnicNewz and FI2W reporter

SAUGUS, Mass. – Shocked, fearful, and helpless – that’s how Samuel Goncalves felt in 2007 shortly after being diagnosed with lung cancer at the age of 18.

Samuel, who immigrated to the U.S. from Brazil with his family, had no health insurance. Even though he was a legal immigrant, Goncalves didn’t qualify for Medicaid or any other government-run health program. He only had a green card for three years – not five, as federal law required back then.

The five-year waiting period for legal immigrant children to qualify for health assistance was removed last week as President Barack Obama signed into law the Children’s Health Insurance Reauthorization Act of 2009 (SCHIP). SCHIP will enable states to cover more than four million uninsured children from low-income families - including legal immigrant children - by 2013, while continuing coverage for seven million youngsters already covered by the program.

In Congress, the debate over SCHIP was considered by many to be a preview of the upcoming debate over health care reform. Although the U.S. invests about $2 trillion per year in health care, 45 million Americans remain uninsured.

“Even though we’re considered the wealthiest country on Earth, the health and well-being of Americas’ children is worse than that of every other developed country in the world,” said Charles Homer, pediatrician and C.E.O. of the National Initiative for Children’s Healthcare Quality (NICHQ), a Cambridge, Mass. based non-profit organization.
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.