Category: health issues

Obamacare applies to legal immigrants—all 150 varieties!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Obama: Have no fear! We’ve got your Obamacare instructions in 150 different languages!

Before you read this, here is my disclaimer:  Like most Americans, I don’t know what the heck Obamacare does or doesn’t do, but this is one supposed expert’s view on whether legal immigrants (although they may be non-citizens) must also sign-up for Obamacare.  Yes! says the expert (with some caveats!).

From About.com:

The Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, begins a period of open enrollment on Tuesday, Oct. 1, and immigrants will have to comply with the new law.

Immigrants with legal status — green card-holders, asylees, people with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) — are required to have health insurance coverage just like U.S. citizens.

For immigrants without legal status, nothing changes. Obamacare has nothing to offer unauthorized immigrants other than the status quo. Hospitals are still required to provide emergency room care to anyone who comes through their doors, regardless of immigration status, race or ethnicity.  [Caveat #1:  hospitals will still have to treat everyone and then try to squeeze the patient for payment later—-good luck with that!—ed]

Immigrants who have lived in the United States legally for at least five years and meet income requirements may be eligible to get Medicaid health coverage.  [Caveat #2:  A large number of legal refugees will just sign up for Medicaid, and probably not be truthful about income.—ed]

Are there penalties for immigrants who qualify to participate in the new system but don’t? Yes, immigrants are subject to fines, just like U.S. citizens. [Caveat #3: We keep hearing that the fines are so low that it’s better to pay the fine, but do they even file a tax return on which to be fined?—ed]

Fear not!  If you are a confused immigrant, Obama said two days ago, this is all you need to do:

…. there’s a hotline where you can apply over the phone and get help with the application, or just get questions that you have answered by real people, in 150 different languages.   So let me give you that number.  The number is 1-800-318-2596 — 1-800-318-2596.

If any of you speak another language well, why not call and see what is available in that language!

Obamacare will help mentally ill refugees say California immigrant health advocates

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here are some snips from the story at New America Media (hat tip: Joanne):

….a public health care worker [Mohamed] who helps refugees from African and Middle-Eastern countries says once Obamacare is launched she will no longer have to witness her clients getting bumped off health care benefits eight months after they arrive in the United States, even as they are still trying to navigate the new culture.  [She is referring to the initial health care that comes with each refugee, thanks to the US taxpayer—ed]

[….]

The ACA [Affordable Care Act] will require insurers to treat psychiatric illness like any other. It will also remove many of the obstacles to fair treatment, Muñoz said.

Mohamed [Amina Sheik Mohamed], program director at UCSD’s Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, and active in the African and Middle-Eastern refugee communities, said that if refugees can now enroll in Medi-Cal because of its expansion, they need no longer face the short-term health care their refugee status now limits them to.

That aside, Obamacare will allow refugees to access the mental health services they so acutely need, she said.

“Refugees come to the United States with a lot of anxiety and stress,” she pointed out. “They need mental health care.”

Yes they do!  See our ‘health issues’ category (168 previous posts!) for more on refugee mental illness.  For new readers, to learn what other benefits refugees receive in addition to health care, see our Fact Sheet by clicking here.

The photo is from this March 2013 story about Mohamed at KPBS.

Immigrant “advocate” pleads guilty in health care scam

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As far as I know this doesn’t involve refugees (it might though), but since we have been talking about immigrants ripping off US taxpayers with the food stamp program, I wanted to be sure you saw this story from San Diego.  Nawal Talia, apparently a lawyer or acting like one, helped rip-off the US taxpayer for more than a million bucks.

Nawal Talia is listed at the Middle Eastern Community Resource Directory as “Specializing in disability& immigration law services.”

From San Diego 6:

SAN DIEGO (CNS) – A Spring Valley woman pleaded guilty Friday to taking part in a multi-year scheme to falsify medical certifications while working as an advocate for immigrants seeking help in obtaining U.S. citizenship or government benefits.

Nawal Talia, 57, admitted during a hearing in federal court in San Diego that she recruited patients for National City psychologist Roberto Velasquez, who was sentenced earlier this year to 21 months in prison and ordered to repay more than $1.5 million to the Social Security Administration in the largest single restitution order in the agency’s history.

As part of her job, Talia for several years submitted documents to federal agencies on behalf of her clients, certifying that they were mentally disabled. Rather than obtain benefits legitimately, she and Velasquez worked together to falsify medical certifications and fabricate patient histories, according to prosecutors.

Talia admitted that she helped Velasquez falsify disability-exception certification forms used by the Department of Homeland Security during the naturalization process and medical letters used by the Social Security Administration to award Supplemental Security Income and disability payments.

Go to the US Attorney’s office press release which describes in more detail the egregious “massive” crime she committed.

As is often the case in these scam reports, I could not find a photo of Ms. Talia.  The graphic and her listing is here.

Someone really needs to write a whole blog on the full array of fraud schemes being perpetrated by immigrant-fraudsters on the US government (on us!).

Related maybe:  Yesterday I got a notice about a teleconference on immigrant scams (the notice went to refugee “stakeholders”) that the USCIS is putting on.  At first I thought it was about immigrant-perpetrated scams, but it’s about protecting immigrants from shyster lawyers (like Talia?).  I figured it wasn’t worth posting on in a separate post, but maybe it will interest you.

Another complication for Obamacare—Tagalog(?) interpretation needed

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

One more headache for those trying to figure out how to run Obamacare—-federal law requires foreign language interpreters for government health care.

So how are they possibly going to get the information to the millions of Americans who don’t speak English?  And, yikes! how much will it cost?

To add to the chaos, the US State Department’s Refugee Resettlement Program is every day adding to the potpourri of obscure languages they will need to be ready for.

Here is the AP story at the Houston Chronicle:

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Set on a gritty corner of Oakland’s International Boulevard, the nonprofit Street Level Health Project offers free checkups to patients who speak a total of 22 languages, from recent Mongolian immigrants seeking a doctor to Burmese refugees in need of a basic dental exam.

It also provides a window into one of the challenges for state officials who are trying to implement the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s sweeping health care overhaul.

Understanding the law is a challenge even for governors, state lawmakers and agency officials, but delivering its message to non-English speakers who can benefit from it is shaping up as a special complication. That is especially true in states with large and diverse immigrant populations.

For Zaya Jaden, a 35-year-old from Mongolia, getting free care for her sister’s persistent migraine was a much higher priority than considering how the expansion of the nation’s social safety net through the Affordable Care Act might benefit her.

The sisters crammed into the clinic’s waiting room, sandwiched between families chatting in the indigenous Guatemalan language Mam, and discussed whether enrolling in Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act would work for the family’s finances.

“It was a good idea that Obama had, but I don’t know if it will work for me,” said Jaden, who gets private insurance for her family through her job as a laundress at an Oakland hotel and currently makes too much money to qualify for Medicaid. “If I make less than what I make to try to qualify for the government program, how could I pay my rent?”

Jaden’s ambivalence demonstrates the cultural and language hurdles that California and several other states are facing as they build exchanges — or health insurance marketplaces —and try to expand coverage to ethnic and hard-to-reach populations.

[…..]

The U.S. Census estimates that more than 55 million people speak a language other than English at home. Nearly 63 percent of those are Spanish-speakers, with the highest concentrations in Texas, California and New Mexico. Chinese was the third most commonly spoken language, with large populations in California, New York, Hawaii and Massachusetts.

Five other languages have at least 1 million speakers: Tagalog,* French, Vietnamese, German and Korean.

Glad it’s not me figuring out how to make this work!  And, imagine what it will cost.  In one of the first posts I ever wrote here at RRW (July 2007) I reported that the Montgomery County Court (MD) system was shelling out a $1 million a year on interpreters for immigrant court cases.  I wonder if the CBO figured interpreter costs into the taxpayers’ bill for Obamacare?

*Tagalog?  Go here.

Sheboygan TB outbreak—it’s not about badgers

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Huh?

I’ve noticed a trend in reporting about immigrants and refugees—unless they are cute kids or wholesome-looking young adults, avoid the photos.  How many times have I seen immigrant food stamp fraud cases reported and the accompanying photo is the ‘scales of justice’ or just a photo of an EBT card?  I would say about half of the stories I come across involving immigrant criminals use some other illustration than the person’s face!

British badgers taking the blame for TB?

So, when I saw this story about Tuberculosis in the UK  on the rise in one section of London (Redbridge) due to the large immigrant population, illustrating the story with a photo of a badger seems the ultimate diversion in the main stream media’s politically-correct avoidance of the truth.

Here is the story from the Ilford Recorder.

It seems badgers may be responsible for bovine TB, but the important part of the story is this:

A new health group is fighting the spread of tuberculosis (TB) in Redbridge after it was revealed to have one of the worst rates of the disease in London.

The group was set up by Redbridge Council, which is now in charge of public health in the borough, to co-ordinate a three-year programme to raise awareness of the disease in vulnerable residents.

[…..]

More than 56 residents per every 100,000 in the borough had the disease last year, when 157 new cases were recorded.

The average rate for England is just 14 and 42 in London. Most sufferers were born outside of the UK and aged between 25 and 44.

The Greens have jumped in to defend the badgers and a spokeswoman reminds the public that this is human to human TB and doesn’t involve the scapegoated badgers.

“Although Redbridge has one of the worst rates of tuberculosis in London, residents should remember that it is a separate strain of TB, transmitted only between human beings.”

So you think it’s just ‘over there’!

I bet you missed this story from Sheboygan, Wisconsin two months ago.  I did, but reader ‘pungentpeppers’ didn’t.

Tuberculosis Outbreak Shakes Wisconsin City

Looking crisp and official in his khaki-colored sheriff’s department polo shirt, Steve Steinhardt says Sheboygan, Wis., is a pretty good place to be a director of emergency services.

“Nothing bad happens here,” he says, knocking on wood. Unless, that is, you count the tuberculosis outbreak that struck the orderly Midwestern city of 50,000 this spring and summer.

“I never expected TB to be one of the bigger emergencies I’d face when I got into this field,” Steinhardt says.

Sheboygan County officials have had to scramble to contain it. At the height of the crisis, the county activated its emergency operation center — a step usually reserved for major fires, floods and tornadoes.

It began with an immigrant family (apparently refugees).

The Sheboygan outbreak came to light on April 11. The first case was a woman at the center of a large, close-knit family. Health officials decline to identify the family, but they say the people were part of an immigrant community, a common theme in most current TB outbreaks in the U.S.

Sheboygan is home to sizable populations from Mexico and Southeast Asia, where TB is common. Asian immigrants make up half of Wisconsin’s recent TB cases. Refugees among the Hmong people of Laos and Thailand have been among the most difficult to treat cases.

Who will pay for all this?  Obama?

But the really bad news was that the woman at the epidemic’s center had a TB strain resistant to at least two of the main drugs used to treat the infection. That’s known as , or MDR-TB. It’s especially hard to cure. The antibiotics can cost around $300,000 for a single case.

For new readers, see our category on ‘health issues’ (here) and see especially this shocking story from last year about the IOM readying drug-resistant TB cases to come to the US.