In a proclaimed attempt to “address a big wrong” committed by legislators in Washington, D.C., the Los Angeles City Council last week unanimously threw its support behind a State Senator’s attempt to expand access to health care coverage to all California, regardless of their respective immigrant status.
A resolution brought to the council floor on April 22 by Councilman Gil Cedillo proposed to have the City of Los Angeles formally support Senate Bill 1005 (SB 1005). All 12 council members in attendance at the April 22 meeting voted in favor of the resolution.
Introduced in Sacramento by State Senator Ricardo Lara, the bill aims to have undocumented immigrants be included within the purview of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), which was signed into law by President Barack Obama in March 2010.
The federal law, as stated by the City’s chief legislative analyst, would “ensure that all Americans have access to quality, affordable health care.”
However, according to Cedillo’s resolution and Lara’s bill, the ACA “specifically denies health care coverage to undocumented immigrants.”
Cedillo’s resolution added up to four million Californians would be insured with the full implementation of the ACA because of the provision to deny health care coverage to undocumented immigrants.
“In March of 2010, we were all excited when the President signed the Affordable Care Act … because we were joining the community of nations in providing an ability for all our citizens to have access to health care,” Cedillo told his colleagues. “Unfortunately, though, that Affordable Care Act had an asterisk.”
Cedillo added immigrants were left out of the process of implementing the ACA.
“As a result of the hysteria of the anti-immigrant xenophobia that exists, immigrants who can buy homes, businesses, cars, and auto insurance are legally prohibited from buying health insurance,” Cedillo said. “Regardless of your immigration status, people get sick.”
With the ACA excluding some based on immigrant status, Cedillo said, it would force those who are unable to purchase health insurance into emergency rooms and ultimately drive up health care costs “and increase human suffering.”
Councilman Mike Bonin, who represents several Westside communities, including Brentwood, Mar Vista, Palms, and Venice, told his colleagues he “could not be more enthusiastically in support” of the proposal to support SB 1005.
“The way the federal government has handled this issue is both illogical from a financial perspective and just flatly immoral from a human perspective,” Bonin stated. “This bill is the right thing to do. It is the right opportunity for California to address a big wrong from our nation’s capitol.”
In his bill, Lara stated SB 1005, if signed into law by the Governor, “would help close the gap and require that insurance coverage for undocumented immigrants be provided only with state funds.”
According to the City’s Chief Legislative Analyst, a joint study by the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, and the UCSF Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies found between three and four million Californians would remain uninsured even with the ACA in effect. About one million from this group are undocumented immigrants ineligible for federal coverage options under the ACA, the study reported.
Cedillo’s resolution pointed out about 94 percent of Americans would be covered by the ACA.
Councilmen Mitch Englander, Felipe Fuentes, and Tom LaBonge were not present for the vote.
