logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

Free Health Clinics are Bridges to Justice for the Undocumented

Rick Cohen
January 22, 2014
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print

 Puentes

January 19, 2014; New York Times

Even after the national health insurance reform gets fully underway, some immigrants, such as Mery Martinez in Philadelphia, will be left out of coverage. Martinez is one of the millions of undocumented immigrants in the U.S., as many as 11.7 million, who won’t be able to take part in the healthcare benefits of the Affordable Care Act.

Like many undocumented immigrants, Martinez has had to rely on the availability of low-cost or free health clinics. With their omission from Affordable Care Act coverage, undocumented immigrants might find themselves going to nonprofit clinics that specialize in reaching out to and treating this population. Facing some health issues, Martinez went to the nonprofit Puentes de Salud, which uses a consulting room at the University of Pennsylvania medical school for patients like her. The co-founder of Puentes de Salud, Steve Larson, a professor of emergency medicine at Penn, says that his clinic is different from others because it also tries to address “the underlying causes of illness, like poor nutrition, illiteracy or urban violence.”

This article in the New York Times summarizes the problem for undocumented immigrants:

“The new federal healthcare law does not provide assistance to illegal immigrants, who are generally ineligible for Medicaid, cannot get federal subsidies for private insurance and cannot use the new insurance exchanges to buy unsubsidized insurance with their own money…Under the federal Affordable Care Act, such immigrants are exempt from the requirement to have insurance.”

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

The future of access to healthcare for undocumented immigrants for the moment is going to depend on nonprofit clinics like Puentes de Salud. The clinic currently operates with a $350,000 budget and only two full-time employees, supplemented by volunteer services provided medical students and community volunteers. Larson is now trying to raise money to open a 7,000-square-foot clinic, with half its space dedicated to clinical services and half to preventive and educational services like nutritional services, literacy training, and sex education.

Part of the challenge remains the insecurity of people like Martinez. A Honduran immigrant, Martinez crossed the Mexican border into Texas in 2003, worked as a house cleaner, and is now unemployed without income. To avoid being picked up and deported by immigration authorities, she doesn’t even go to food pantries.

That the Affordable Care Act would omit over ten million people in need of healthcare, an idea that was one of several sops offered by the Democratic sponsors of the Affordable Care Act in the vain and fruitless hope of winning over Republican opponents, is just one of several elements of the legislation that make it fall far short of universal coverage.

The problem of providing healthcare coverage to undocumented immigrants isn’t just due to the lacunae in the Affordable Care Act, but differences even from county to county in some states. For example, in California, where there are an estimated 2.8 million undocumented immigrants, all ineligible for the ACA’s coverage and even for the coverage offered by the state Medi-Cal program, the counties set their own standards regarding who can get treatment in programs offered by county governments—for example, no coverage in San Bernardino County, but coverage in nearby Los Angeles County. State Senator Ricardo Lara earlier this month introduced a bill to make health insurance available to all residents, irrespective of their immigrant status, noting that a person’s immigrant status should be irrelevant if the objective is to provide all Americans with decent, affordable coverage.

“Puentes de Salud” is Spanish for “bridges to health.” For people like Mery Martinez, these nonprofit health clinics offering low-cost or no-cost treatment for undocumented immigrants, they are also “puentes a la justicia.”—Rick Cohen

 

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rick Cohen

Rick joined NPQ in 2006, after almost eight years as the executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Before that he played various roles as a community worker and advisor to others doing community work. He also worked in government. Cohen pursued investigative and analytical articles, advocated for increased philanthropic giving and access for disenfranchised constituencies, and promoted increased philanthropic and nonprofit accountability.

More about: Health EquityImmigrationInequalityNonprofit NewsPolicySocial Services

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

NPQ_Winter_2022Subscribe Today
You might also like
Linking Our Fights to Win: On Combatting Elite Capture
Kitana Ananda and Olúfemi O. Táíwò
HLTH 2022: Obstacles to Health Equity
Sonia Sarkar
Leaders Say Public Health Ethics Is Necessary for Social Justice
Nineequa Blanding
How do water shutoffs impact low-income communities?
Iris Crawford
Slow Food Wants to Bring Justice, Education, and Joy to the Food Experience
Brandy Collins
Cancelling Student Debt Is Necessary for Racial Justice
Kitana Ananda

Upcoming Webinars

Group Created with Sketch.
February 23rd, 2 pm ET

Worker Power in the Social Sector

Register Now
You might also like
Linking Our Fights to Win: On Combatting Elite Capture
Kitana Ananda and Olúfemi O. Táíwò
HLTH 2022: Obstacles to Health Equity
Sonia Sarkar
Leaders Say Public Health Ethics Is Necessary for Social...
Nineequa Blanding

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.