The woman with the small child in tow outside the Clear Lake medical centre has every reason to celebrate health care reform. Except one.
She is not covered because she cannot afford the sky-high insurance premiums charged in Texas. As a part-time domestic worker in one of the sprawling waterside houses just outside Houston, her earnings would qualify her for heavily subsidised health coverage under the new law.
But the Mexican-born woman is an illegal immigrant – one of the undocumented, as the Americans call them – and the new legislation bars her from benefiting.
"My daughter is six. She was born here. The state pays for her to go to hospital," she said. "If I get sick I do what all the Mexicans do: I go and sit in the emergency room where they cannot turn you away."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/22/us-healthcare-bill-illegal-immigrants
Posted By:
Christian Lopez
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