Healthcare for local Latinos Families

My wife and I volunteered yesterday at the Magis Clinic in South Omaha. If you are not familiar with the area, South Omaha is predominately populated with Latino families. We volunteered for about 2 1/2 hours mainly helping young kids from 5-14 years old get ready for the school year to began. My wife was in charge of getting their vitals: temp, height, weight, blood pressure etc. and I was there to help anyone who needed an interpreter. 

     

What surprised me the most is how many of these families did not have health insurance or really didn't make it a priority. Many of the children that we talked too hadn't been to the doctor's office in years and were behind on their shots. I imagine that they hadn't seen the doctor in such a long time because either their parents didn't have health insurance and/or they are illegal immigrants afraid of filling out paper work. 

Talking to one of the pediatric doctors, she said it was really sad that many of these kids will go such a long time without getting their health checked. This in turn creates a culture within these families that getting regular checkups is not important. I think I was fortunate enough to have parents that made us get a yearly check up and so going to the doctor's office was never frowned upon. 

What I'm curious to know is what will happen with these illegal immigrant families in respects to the health plan President Obama has been promoting. The option is clear, anyone who wants to buy into the government health plan can do so, yet President Obama has NOT addressed if this will be an option for illegal immigrants. I believe that it would be beneficial to everyone, right-wing, left-wing, Democrats, Republicans and whatever else if the illegal immigrant population has the option to pay for that health insurance. It would be no different than buying a car for example, the choice is there and you get what you pay for. They would be paying the same amount as any other citizen and getting the same benefits. Them NOT having health insurance would back-fire as the rhetoric of illegal's consuming our tax dollars would never end. 

I believe if you are a human being living in this country, and there is an option for you to be able to pay for health insurance, it should be available regardless of your citizenship. It is a win-win situation, healthier people make more a healthier nation, making for fun times!