Idaho: Panel rejects Republican plan to bar Immigrants from health-care program;

A Senate committee has rejected a bill that would have barred illegal immigrants from accessing a health-care program for the poor and uninsured. But members of the Health and Welfare Committee said even though they object to the bill presented by the Idaho Association of Counties and led by Canyon County officials, they're willing to reconsider if opponents and supporters can reach a compromise. And opposition was considerable: Doctors, hospitals, business leaders, insurance companies, religious groups and advocates for the poor all chimed in to bring the bill down. "Immigrants, whatever their status, are still human beings," Christina Delgado, an opponent of the measure, told the committee. "We need real solutions." Senate Bill 1105 would let only U.S. citizens or legal residents get full use of the program, which is subsidized by county and state taxpayers. Under state law, the counties pay up to $10,000 for an indigent person's health-care costs. The state pays all the costs after that. The bill would have set the county's liability at up to $5,000 for emergency care "to the point of stabilization" to send illegal residents back to their own country. Additionally, the bill would have made employers liable for medical costs if they knowingly hired an illegal worker. That brought opposition from the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry, the state's most powerful lobbying force. But county officials said lawmakers need to act and brushed off criticism that the bill unfairly targets illegal immigrants who also are Hispanic. "It is not about emotion. It is not about racism. It is not about color. The only color this is about is green, and that is money," said Canyon County Commission Robert Vasquez, one of the leading advocates for reform. [more]