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A Times Editorial
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 30, 2001
U.S. Sen. Bob Graham and U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart have teamed to restore a measure of humanity to our immigration policies. The two Florida lawmakers are sponsoring legislation that would restore protection under Medicaid and the state-run Children's Health Insurance Program or CHIP, to legal immigrant children. Their bills would reverse one of the harshest provisions of the 1996 immigration overhaul, which barred even legal immigrants from using government insurance services for five years and gave states the option to deny immigrants coverage.
If the legislation passes, states can choose to open the CHIP program immediately to immigrant children whose parents make too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but too little to afford private insurance. The federal government would split the program's cost with states. The National Governors' Association supports the corrective measure. And Gov. Jeb Bush's endorsement shows how pivotal the issue is for Florida, where about 800,000 children of immigrant parents lived in 1999. Of those kids, 28 percent are uninsured, double the rate for other children. Only Texas insures a smaller percentage of its immigrant kids. Few states would benefit more from increased federal help than Florida. Graham's office estimates that if the provision had been in place two years ago, Florida could have spent all its federal allocation of CHIP money and qualified for a bonus, rather than having to give a portion of the funds back to Washington.
Even if you assume Congress in 1996 had the best motives, the reforms designed to discourage illegal immigration cast too wide a net. While the restrictions targeted noncitizens, plenty of citizens have suffered as well, because 80 percent of children with immigrant parents are actually citizens themselves. The Graham and Diaz-Balart measures also would extend benefits to pregnant immigrants, a change that would help about 50,000 women annually. To the extent that the bill reduces emergency room visits and other expensive emergency care, it would save money for every Floridian who uses the medical system. The measure is part of a three-part package that also seeks to restore food-stamp eligibility to children of immigrants and reopen services to women who are domestic violence victims. Bipartisan support from Graham and Diaz-Balart is encouraging. The rest of the Florida delegation should join them in restoring equal access to the fruits of legal state and national citizenship, no matter when one's parents set foot on these shores.