Health Care Reforms! : Immigrants have a huge stake in reform

NEW YORK: PR - The New York Immigration Coalition and New York Community Media Alliance jointly organized a press briefing on health care reform for the members of the ethnic and community media at NYIC's office on Tuesday, November 17.
Attended by about 50 journalists representing different community media publications and television and radio channels, the press briefing was addressed by NYIC Executive Director Chung-Wha Hong, Mark Hannay, Director, Metro New York Health Care for All Campaign; Jenny Rejeske, Health Advocacy Coordinator, NY Immigration Coalition; Ayaz Ahmad, Director South Asian Council for Social Services; Lana Khrapunskaya, Intake Coordinator and Case Worker, Shorefront YM-YWHA of Brighton-Manhattan Beach; Noilyn Abesamis-Mendoza, Manager of Health Policy, Coalition for Asian-American Children and Families and Theo Oshiro, Director of Health Advocacy, Make the Road NY.

In her remarks, Chung-Wha Hong highlighted some of the concerns of the immigrant communities about the health care reform. She called for making immigrants part of the solution when fixing the country's broken health delivery system. She said legal immigrants who paid the same amount of taxes as the US citizens should have equal access to health insurance programs, referring to the present five-year wait imposed on documented immigrants before getting access to Medicaid. She also opposed denial of health insurance to undocumented immigrants.

Jenny Rejeske, Health Advocacy Coordinator, NY Immigration Coalition addressing the press briefing which was attended by about 50 journalists representing different ethnic and community publications, television and radio channels. – Photo by Norman Eng

The speakers gave details of Affordable Health Care for America Act, HR3962, the health care reform bill passed by the House of Representatives on November 7, and on the potential effects on Americans, particularly immigrants. Some highlighted the adverse impact of five-year bar on permanent residents to get Medicaid, saying it denies critical health coverage to 358,000 people across the nation. It may be pointed out that the House bill does not restore federal Medicaid eligibility for the recently arrived, lawful permanent residents.

All the speakers are strong supporters of the health care reform initiative and demand that all legal US residents should be treated equally and afforded equal access to the health care system. They advocated for the education of the communities on the critical issues in the health care reform debate and pressed the need to get their concerns addressed in the proposed legislation. They pointed out that immigrants have a huge stake in health care reform and that the communities need to play a more active role to get their needs met. ......LINK