Hispanic immigrants face health care hurdles

Affordable insurance remains out of reach for those lacking citizenship

Cecilia Ramirez is worried about her weight and troubling symptoms that hint of diabetes, but she won’t seek medical help because she can’t afford it.

“I don’t go to the doctor when I’m sick — it’s too expensive,” she said.

Though she works in sales at an insurance agency in Highlandtown, an East Baltimore neighborhood that has seen an influx of Hispanic immigrants in recent years, Ramirez, 23, has no health insurance.

Her predicament is shared by thousands of Hispanic immigrants in East Baltimore, and millions nationally, who cannot afford regular medical services and are uninsured because they lack the benefits attached to legal U.S. residency and citizenship.

Ramirez’s parents came illegally to the U.S. from Mexico when she was 10. Her immigration status now — “lawfully present” — allows her to work and study here without fear of deportation, but she has no path to citizenship. She is ineligible for health coverage under the Affordable Care Act or any public insurance program. The Supreme Court’s order last week in a related immigration case did not change this.

Her $23,000 annual income would easily qualify her for Medicaid, but only her two young children can get it. Ramirez’s employer can’t afford to offer her private health insurance, and even if it did, she doubts she could afford it.

Latino immigrants ,uninsured or not, face many challenges when it comes to finding medical care. Many have trouble communicating in English, are poor and undereducated, or lack easy access to transportation to get to and from doctors or clinic appointments. Others come from cultures where health care is a luxury they don’t regularly seek out.

But the inability of noncitizens to join affordable health plans remains the primary stumbling block.

“What we’re seeing across the country is that the undocumented are one of the most vulnerable groups out there when it comes to insurability,” said Steven Lopez, manager of the health policy project at the National Council of La Raza, the largest Latino

DOUG KAPUSTIN/KAISER HEALTH NEWS Dr. Sarah Polk, a pediatrician, provides care at Centro SOL to patients like Janexy Marquez-Ramirez and her mother, Karen Ramirez-Contreras. The Hopkins Bayview Medical Center clinic and outreach program treats Hispanic clients at reduced prices.

DOUG KAPUSTIN/ KAISER HEALTH NEWS Cecilia Ramirez and her daughters, Jenny, 7, and Kimberly, 3. The girls qualify for Medicaid because they were born in the U.S., but their mother does not because of her immigration status.