Inhumane policies are creating an unnecessary health care crisis within our immigrant communities and wasting taxpayers dollars.

Texas Monthly reports that immigrants can’t access preventative, cost-effective health care services “because they don’t qualify for coverage through Medicare, traditional Medicaid, or other public insurance options. But federal law requires hospitals to stabilize all patients in a medical crisis or transfer them to a facility that can stabilize them.”

Their reporting looks specifically at the impact on patients who require regular dialysis treatments, a condition that requires regular care and doctor oversight.

Those who fall between the cracks can’t receive regular care and are made to wait until the situation is so dire that costly emergency services are required.

This makes little sense for the health of the patients or financially for the state. Immigrants experiencing kidney failure are forced to suffer to the point that it is an emergency, and the taxpayer ends up covering the staggering cost of emergency services, instead of cost-effective routine care.

This inhumane waste of money could be avoided. Immigrants should be able to access Medicare, Medicaid, and all public and employer insurance plans.

Regardless of who you are, or where you’re from, you deserve the dignity of quality health care.