Unauthorized Immigrants and Health Care Coverage

Unauthorized
Immigrants and Health
Care Coverage
Montreal, April 10, 2013
Norman Daniels (with Keren Ladin)
Harvard School of Public Health
1
Wednesday, April 10, 13
Our Question
n Should unauthorized immigrants have access to health care
n
n
insurance (as in ACA)?
n not political feasibility question--moral issue
They are already covered for emergency care by EMTALA
Thesis:
n Presumption for coverage--not from global justice (open
borders) or human rights, but from reciprocity and from
social justice for all members of a society--key claim:
membership
n No overriding reason to exclude
5
Wednesday, April 10, 13
More on thesis
n Intuitions
(judgments) to be defended:
n most
unauthorized immigrants in US are
members of US society
n but:
then some members are not citizens with full
political participation rights (--> need for immigration
reform)
n we
should develop and implement reasonable
immigration policy but apply that separately from
claims about welfare benefits owed to all
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Wednesday, April 10, 13
Background (1)
n Long-standing
flow of migrant Latin workers
n Braceros
n Absence
of quotas
n Mostly temporary migration
n Militarization
of US border--1993
n trapped
millions of would-be temporary immigrants--3
became 12 million in following decade
n NAFTA increased flow of displaced Mexican farmers
n Ready job access in US
n Flow
stopped by 2012-- lack of jobs plus
militarization
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Wednesday, April 10, 13
Background (2)
n
Personal Responsibility Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act (PRWORA)--1996
n ended
parity of immigrants-- “legal” immigrants
had to wait five years for benefits, but
unauthorized ones had no access to federal
benefits
n ACA--
entrenched non-parity (may have
relaxed 5 year wait for legal immigrants to
insurance exchanges)
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Wednesday, April 10, 13
Some views of global justice
require open borders
n Open
borders allow migration to protect
equality of opportunity globally (inequalities
seem ethically problematic to many and
justification of coercive exclusion to those
excluded unlikely--supports cosmopolitan
view)
n If open borders, then contrast between
unauthorized and authorized immigrants is
problematic and state authority to regulate
immigration becomes xproblematic
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Wednesday, April 10, 13
Justice and feasibility
Sometimes infeasibility overrides requirements of
justice, sometimes basis for holding some
accountable for injustice
n “ought implies can”-- what notion of feasibility
might support this implication?
n feasibility as achievability vs sustainability-sustainable feasibility as candidate account
n open borders lacks sustainable feasibility
(various scenarios where regulating flow of
immigrants is arguably reasonable policy), and
so cannot be requirement of justice
n
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Wednesday, April 10, 13
Human rights claims?
Right claims are not to open borders-- right to
migrate is not right to immigrate
n CESCR comments impose duties on states, but
they have discretion to progressively realize right
to health care
n No explicit claim in CESCR comments that
human right to health care implies access to
insurance as in ACA (many states provide
emergency care)
n Inconclusive claim despite idea that human rights
attach to individuals
n
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Wednesday, April 10, 13
Summary so far
n Global
justice view of open borders is not
plausible requirement of justice
n justice
requires sustainable feasibility
n various scenarios imply reasonable support for
regulating immigration flow and thus closing
borders
n Human
right to health care-- does not
address this issue explicitly
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Wednesday, April 10, 13
State authority to regulate
immigration
Argument so far grants states authority, but it is
not open-ended authority
n State authority constrained by certain conditions
(we offer no general account here), e.g., to
preserve reasonable welfare benefit that might
be overwhelmed by unregulated immigration, to
prevent negative impact on some vulnerable
group, to encourage some needed workers but
not unneeded ones, to avoid criminal or terrorist
agents -- all of which can be abused
n
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Wednesday, April 10, 13
Presumption to include (1)
n Reciprocity
requires contributors to a shared
product to share in benefits produced
n most unauthorized immigrants work, pay
taxes (receive fewer benefits, e.g., from SSI
and Medicare)
n most unauthorized immigrants should
receive benefits according to reciprocity
principle
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Wednesday, April 10, 13
Presumption to include (2)
n Most
unauthorized immigrants are members of
the community.
n work,
pay taxes, participate in institutions (schools,
churches), buy houses or rent residences
n Members
of the community should be governed
by fair terms of cooperation in it
n Rawls’s
claim: JAF applies to free and equal citizens-literal vs charitable interpretation
n If
non-literal, then unauthorized immigrants should have
health care (opportunity) protected by social justice
n Problem: voice missing (political participation),
strengthens argument for reform that gives route to voice
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Wednesday, April 10, 13
FEO account of importance of
health
health is normal functioning
n departures from normal functioning diminish
individual share of normal opportunity range
n keeping people functioning normally makes
limited but significant contribution to protecting
individual opportunity
n If we have social obligations to assure fair
equality of opportunity, then we have social
obligations to keep people functioning normally
(borrow justification from general theory of
justice)
n
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Wednesday, April 10, 13
Inadequate reasons for
exclusion
n no
legal claim
n criminal behavior
n bad incentives
n undue cost
n emergency care sufficient
n bad impact on vulnerable groups
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Wednesday, April 10, 13
Conclusion
n Presumption
to include (in ACA)
n reciprocity
n membership
and social justice (feo)
n not global justice or human rights
n No
overriding reason to exclude
n Argument limited
n applies
only to “most” unauthorized immigrants
n need to distinguish immigration policy from welfare
benefits--but have strengthened reason to give
long-standing unauthorized immigrants a path to
citizenship (voice) since they are members
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Wednesday, April 10, 13