Medi-Cal pays for over 100,000 births by undocumented women
 

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - More than 100,000 undocumented women each year bear children in California with expenses paid by Medi-Cal, according to state reports.

Such births and related expenses account for more than $400 million of the nearly $1 billion that the program spends annually on health care for illegal immigrants in California, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing state reports.

California long has been one of the more generous states in offering such benefits to illegal immigrants, covering everything from pregnancy tests to postpartum checkups.

Many illegal immigrants who might otherwise shy away from government services view care associated with childbirth as safe to seek.

"I wasn't afraid at all," said Sandra Andrade, an illegal immigrant from Colombia who recently gave birth at a Los Angeles hospital. "I'd always heard that pregnant women are treated well here."

Nationally, a debate is simmering about the costs of providing medical care to illegal immigrants.

Anti-illegal immigration groups argue that "birthright" U.S. citizenship for babies born in America is an incentive for illegal immigrants to have their children here.

"I think most Americans think that while they certainly don't want to do anything to harm children you cannot have a policy that says anybody in the world come here and have a baby and we have a new American," said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation of American Immigration Reform, an immigration control group based in Washington, D.C.

Prenatal care is one of the most controversial aspects of providing health care to illegal immigrants.

While labor and delivery long have been considered emergencies, entitled to some federal reimbursement, federal officials have often balked at covering prenatal care. Generally, the state and federal governments share the cost of Medicaid programs, called Medi-Cal in California.

Advocates of such coverage say it's cheaper to pay for prenatal care than risk complications that could saddle the government with huge medical bills.

"Without prenatal care, there's a serious risk that a child will be born with severe disabilities," said Lucy Quacinella, a lobbyist for the Los Angeles-based social service nonprofit group Maternal and Child Health Access. "The cost of caring for that child over a lifetime is astronomical when you compare the cost of having provided the prenatal care."

Still, investing in pregnant illegal immigrants is costly.

Births and prenatal care are the biggest single outlay by Medi-Cal for illegal immigrants' health care, with the rest going for various other emergency treatments, limited breast and cervical cancer treatment, abortions and some nursing home care, according to the state.

In Los Angeles County's public and private hospitals, undocumented women accounted for 41,240 Medi-Cal births in 2004, roughly half the deliveries covered by the public program.

In the four county-run hospitals alone, undocumented women and their newborns will receive more than $20 million in delivery, recovery, nursery and neonatal ICU services this year, according to a county estimate.

what a bunch of fucking whiny cockbags. that money is a small return for those women's contributions to the economy, considering they rarely get a penny back from the taxes and social security they pay. these are hard working people that get nevertheless treated like they are leeching something when in fact the california economy depends on them.

plus, for the stubbornly hater, pseudo-patriotic crowd, let it be known that those children are u.s. citizens by birth: and those 100,000 fresh new bodies are going to be used as cannon fodder in some fucking war or another, so that your own spoiled brat kids can go to college and waste good tuition money getting drunk on a daily basis and learning, oh, absolutely fucking nothing.

you said it best.
repped.

forget about these people's economic value to the United States and California in particular. Remember, these are PEOPLE, and these children we're talking about are real. Do they not deserve proper care and respect regardless of nationality or citizenship? Its a shame the govt has brainwashed its citizens to believe that there are not enough resources for the "undocumented" workers and themselves to coexist.

sure, i do, they are people, and children, not dollar bills, and their lives are priceless. but i can't argue in those terms with bean counters, because they won't understand such ungraspable concepts. however, even within a bean-counting perspective that argument can be won, as i hope i've done on their behalf in this irrelevant corner of the internet.

omg wat dicks! helping pregnant women and wathavyu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111

Crypto what do you think about the Governor here in California, and his proposal for health-care for all?