Massachusetts retreats in healthcare coverage, immigrants denied

In what is largely seen as a foreshadowing of what is potentially to come on a national plane, Massachusetts has abandoned 30,000 legal immigrants that were otherwise eligible for the state's universal coverage.

Massachusetts - widely seen as the poster child of universal healthcare coverage - is proving that when the math does not add up, entire populations of fully-eligible and innocent people can and will be left in the cold when it comes to medical coverage. The state's stark decision is a fiscal one, but its reach among everyday people in need of medical care may very well demonstrate a darkness that public healthcare could represent for the rest of the nation. To help close a growing budget deficit, the state will eliminate healthcare coverage for 30,000 legal immigrants. "The affected immigrants, permanent residents who have had green cards for less than five years, are now covered under Commonwealth Care, a subsidized insurance program for low-income residents that is central to the groundbreaking health care law enacted here in 2006," The New York Times reported on Wednesday. Those who oppose the cut are expressing concern that it is coming at a strategically important time for the state and for the nation as a whole. “It either sends the message that health care reform cannot be done, period,” Eva Millona, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, told The New York Times, “or it opens the door to doing it halfway and excluding immigrants from the process.” Governor Deval Patrick - who has resorted to some draconian measures in tackling the budget, including the closure of the largest zoo in New England - offered $70 million to restore some of the funding for immigrant coverage, a figure that state lawmakers said was far too small to cover other vital services. Massachusetts boasts the country's lowest percentage of uninsured - just 2.6 percent versus a 15 percent average nationally. But the recession has hit the state's universal coverage experiment hard. Tax revenues are down - as they are everywhere else in America - and the pullback on the program demonstrates the tight nature of the fiscal policies needed to keep it running without incident.