Undocumented immigrants deserve health-care coverage
Miguel is the handiest of handymen. He paints, pressure washes, trims trees, fixes plumbing leaks. He is adept at electrical work. If you’re lucky enough to be a friend, he might add a room onto your house or build a storage shed in your yard for a bargain price.
He escaped the poverty of San Salvador with a plan to send money back home to his family and children, but his American dream took a detour due to health problems that got progressively worse — dizziness, partial facial paralysis, eye pain and pain on one side of the head. He worked through the physical symptoms as long as he could, but his condition deteriorated to the point where he needed to reach out for help.
Having no insurance, he paid cash to see a chiropractor and have a magnetic resonance imaging exam of the brain. When the MRI hinted at the possibility of a brain tumor, he was devastated.
Where does an undocumented immigrant go for brain surgery? What is the out-of-pocket cost? As fate would have it, self-proclaimed “regular guy” Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa was available for a free consultation.
Miguel had heard about Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa.
In 1987, on the day before his 19th birthday, Quinones-Hinojosa hopped an 18-foot fence into California from Mexico. He worked illegally as a migrant worker — living in a small trailer like the one the handyman currently lives in — in San Joaquin Valley. Sunup to sundown, seven days a week. But he earned his U.S. citizenship, and immersed himself in academic pursuits that culminated in a medical degree with honors from Harvard.
Dr. Quinones-Hinojosa (a.k.a. “Dr. Q”), who these days heads up the Neuroscience Department at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, analyzed the MRI and ruled out the radiologist’s finding of a possible brain tumor. During a video conference with Miguel, he said he suspected the health problems were result of “occipital neuralgia” — basically nerve pain impacting the head and neck that can present with similar symptoms as certain brain tumors. The handyman had described one job that required him to stand in place at a precarious angle for many hours while painting a ceiling.
Fearful of deportation, Miguel had waited too long in seeking medical attention. But he had finally gotten relief with the neurosurgeon’s recommended pain management and rest regimen.
Isn’t it time a plan to provide people like Miguel with some form of coverage is introduced — a public option, “Medicare for all” system, or other government health program? Miguel contributes to society by paying property taxes, sales taxes and taxes that are withheld by his employers. He funds health-care programs for which he is not eligible.
Does the magnitude of Miguel’s crime justify depriving him of health-care coverage?
The height of hypocrisy is the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s E-verify program, which enables businesses to determine the eligibility of their employees to work in the U.S. But the overwhelming majority of the nation’s 18 million employers do not participate in the program. Why? For so many employers, undocumented immigrants provide cheap, hard-working labor with little or no threat of DHS-employer enforcement.
Republicans preach the need for more walls on the border to crack down on the illegals, but they’re already here. According to Pew Research Center, there are 11.3 million people currently residing in the U.S. without authorization, with more than half of them being from Mexico. The Department of Agriculture estimates that half of our nation’s farm workers lack papers, while 15% of construction workers are unauthorized.
Democrats, especially the candidates who competed for the 2020 presidential nomination, talked big about expanding health coverage to include undocumented immigrants, but there has not been a realistic, specific proposal, no comprehensive blueprint of how to do it or pay for it.
For now, Dr. Q and medical colleagues will continue to be guided by their professional and moral obligations.