MA advocates plan campaign on immigrant health care

[Guest guest]

Advocates plan campaign on immigrants' health care

By Contreras Associated Press / April 25, 2011

Immigrant advocates in Massachusetts say they are preparing an " intense''

lobbying effort to help about 20,000 legal immigrants who are at risk of losing

their state-sponsored health care coverage under a proposal to slash state

spending.

The Massachusetts Immigrants and Refugee Advocacy Coalition said immigrants and

their advocates plan in the coming days to make phone calls, send letters, and

meet with state legislators in an attempt to save funding for the Commonwealth

Care Bridge program.

The program provides basic health care for about 20,000 immigrants classified as

" aliens with special status.'' Early this month, the Massachusetts House Ways

and Means Committee voted to eliminate funding for the program — about $50

million — as state lawmakers try to reduce overall spending to close an

estimated $1.9 billion budget gap.

But Eva Millona, the coalition's executive director, said cutting the program

will drive up health care costs for the state, because the immigrants will be

forced to use more expensive emergency care. " These are residents who pay taxes;

they contribute and already get less coverage than everyone else,'' she said.

" And now they will get nothing.''

The release of the House budget proposal is just one step in the process of

crafting a state spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1. The full

House is scheduled to begin taking up the budget today. The state Senate has to

release and debate its own version of the budget.

Governor Deval created the Bridge program, as it is commonly known, in

2009 after a budgetary action canceled the same legal immigrants' coverage under

CommCare. The creation came after immigrant advocates rallied when some legal

immigrants received letters that their coverage would end.

Greene, director of the Berkshire Immigrant Center in Pittsfield, said

this time she feared that the immigrants in the program will be blindsided and

surprised about their coverage ending, since most aren't aware of the proposal

to cut the program. " They could be shocked when they get that letter,'' said

Greene. " So we are working to educate everyone.''

Greene said if the program is cut, about 400 to 600 immigrants living in the

Berkshires would lose basic health care coverage.

Millona said advocates appreciate that money is tight and everyone is affected

by budget restraints. " We understand that everybody is suffering right now,''

she said. " But immigrants are suffering the most.''

Millona said advocates are working " around the clock'' to persuade key lawmakers

to restore funding for the program.

Senator Chang-, a Boston Democrat, and the state Senate's lone Latina

legislator, said lawmakers can restore funding for the program through budget

amendments.

" Our commitment to universal health care coverage is one of the things that

makes Massachusetts great, and it is a matter of basic fairness that everyone

who's paying into our system should be able to access it,'' Chang- said in a

prepared statement.

US Census data released last month showed that the state's immigrant population

boomed in the last 10 years.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/04/25/advocates_pla\

n_campaign_on_immigrants_health_care/