Better yet, don't bother with health insurance. If you have a medical problem, go to the emergency room and claim to be an illegal. They have to treat you for free then.
Fair Share and Equal Access
Safeguarding the Latino community's access to public services is one of MALDEF's greatest concerns. MALDEF's Public Resource Equity Program seeks to ensure that the needs of Latinos are considered equally for the distribution of funds. MALDEF accomplishes public resource equity by monitoring land use decisions, the distribution of public resources, the administration and delivery of public services, and by ensuring the availability of bilingual public agencies. Through these means, MALDEF secures greater access for the Latino community to health, housing and youth and family services.
As the Latino community and its yearly tax contribution to the nation grows, the Public Resource Equity Program seeks to ensure that Latinos receive their fair share of public resources. This requires that MALDEF closely monitor the legislative process at each state level. This year in California, for example, MALDEF examined and produced budget summary documents based on the Governor's proposed budget year. MALDEF distributed its findings to assist various public agencies, including a group of health care advocates who work to expand health care access for California's 7.4 million uninsured residents, as well as to a coalition of children's advocates seeking increased funding for family support programs through the state budget and legislative process.
Further, MALDEF provided extensive oral and written comments to the California State Commission on the implementation guidelines for Proposition 10, the tobacco tax set to fund early childhood development for California's infants and toddlers. As a result the state commission guidelines now explicitly recognize that all young children are eligible for initiative-funded programs, regardless of their immigration status. At MALDEF'S urging, the funding distribution guidelines also included commitments to create childcare facilities in urban Latino communities, to focus on the issue of pesticide exposure to children of farm workers, to develop culturally and linguistically appropriate media/outreach efforts and to utilize a diversity task force as part of the program.
Another aspect to ensuring equality of access is the elimination of language barriers for the utilization of public services. We are pleased that MALDEF continues to protect the rights of limited English proficient individuals living in the United States. For example, in Texas, MALDEF succeeded in improving services delivered by the Texas Human Rights Commission, the state agency charged with the investigation and enforcement of state law protections barring employment discrimination and unfair housing practices. The Commission is now required to provide a bilingual toll-free hotline for complainants and to draft bilingual outreach materials. Further, MALDEF's lead role in the California Language Access Task Force included the drafting of legislation to strengthen state law mandates requiring state and local agencies to provide services in Spanish.
In Chicago, MALDEF worked to ensure that the Department of Housing increased Latino participation in its programs. MALDEF also reviewed the budgets of childcare services, domestic violence programs and domestic violence shelters within the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS). MALDEF's aim was to determine if Latino community-based organizations had received a fair share of public funding and to determine if Latinos were getting equal access to these publicly funded programs.
In Washington, D.C., MALDEF worked with the Social Security Administration to ensure that newborn citizen children are issued social security numbers. Previously, parents of newborn children were being asked for their own social security numbers before the child would be issued a number. MALDEF worked to eliminate the unconstitutional practice and assisted the agency in creating directives and outreach materials to clarify the matter for patients. MALDEF also supported numerous bills in both the House and Senate to ensure a variety of benefits for legal immigrants. We supported the restoration of food stamp eligibility to legal immigrants cut off from aid by 1996 reform legislation. MALDEF supported the allowance of states to provide Medicaid coverage to poor, legal immigrant women and children, and permitting states to provide health insurance coverage for legal immigrant children.
Because a just distribution of public resources and services works to remedy many of the inequities faced by the Latino community, MALDEF is committed to continuing its successful work in this area.