Shame on Us

From the New York Times editorial page: A Crackdown on Newborns. This is an example of just how ugly the new Medicaid citizenship requirement truly is:

Illegal immigrants have no right to Medicaid, except in emergencies, which includes labor and childbirth. Perinatal care given to illegal immigrant women has routinely been extended for a year to their newborns, too, on the simple assumption that they need it and are automatically entitled to it, if they were born here. (The 14th Amendment grants citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States.")

But now, in a pointless exercise of bureaucratic obstinacy, these children will have to prove what is already self-evident. They must receive a birth certificate and have a Medicaid application approved before receiving a doctor's care. This could take days, weeks or months — a critical time for newborns, who receive a barrage of immunizations and well-baby checkups in the first year. Some babies may get no care at all, if their noncitizen parents, fearing arrest and deportation, decide not to seek it.