Healthcare is a necessary part of a human’s life. There are many situations where a person could experience disoriented health, and the reason is not always as apparent as people would assume. The UN declared healthcare as a human right because of its importance. When it comes to the United States, immigrants may face certain hurdles in receiving the healthcare they need at an affordable price. 

According to immigration attorney Brandon Ritchie of Ritchie-Reiersen Injury & Immigration Attorneys, “finding affordable healthcare is a potent issue between immigrant families in the United States,” Ritchie says, “it is something a number of immigrants face but the general public may not realize.”

2016 brought a significant increase in insurance for immigrant children living in the United States, documented or undocumented. There were coverage provisions added to the Affordable Care Act, which added a wide array of services available to immigrant families and the children of these families. Still, many children of immigrant parents experienced a lack of insurance to a certain degree. 

In the current day and age, 25% of children are the offspring of an immigrant parent. These children may be legally recorded as citizens of the United States of America. Still, the daily life perks that they receive are muddled because of their parents’ immigrant status. These statistics may suggest an existing or impending US public health crisis.

There is limited accessibility for the children of immigrant parents, which worsens their quality of life and in some dire cases, may even lead to the children dying. This is an issue that the country’s humanitarian organizations, as well as the American people, should be concerned about. 

A method that would solve the humanitarian issue, while also maintaining the integrity of the country, was described by Dr. Diana Montoya. Dr. Montoya works at a children’s hospital in Pennsylvania and has claimed that making sure that the children of immigrant parents are covered by insurance could be helpful. The right way to do this would be to bring about legislation that takes care of children who have health-related issues regardless of whether their parents are documented or not. She argues documentation should not be the ultimate reason for negligence to health for these children. 

Furthermore, a substantial population of the country is entirely comfortable with this legislation coming into place. There is massive support for these laws and the only hindrance is government cooperation and bureaucratic red tape. However, Dr. Montoya’s points only address basic healthcare and there are certain barriers that these children will still come across, even if the laws are passed. 

The people who are looking to avail these services and gain the support of these medical health professionals are worried if getting these services would mean trouble for their immigration needs. These families are still unable to get healthcare which is possibly a little more complex than just basic health care. Even under the Affordable Care Act, these immigrants do not qualify. As such, there is no universal solution for this issue. While healthcare may be an improvement needed for immigrant families, painting the problem may be difficult to explain so that the necessary changes can be made.