E-Mail This Article to a Friend FALSE ECONOMIES Romney vetoes immigrant benefits BY KRISTEN LOMBARDI

It’s been something of an emotional roller coaster for legal immigrants who have lost health-care benefits under Medicaid, the joint state-federal program for the poor and disabled (see "Faces of Denial," News and Features, November 14). Just two weeks ago, they were riding high when legislators passed a supplemental budget for fiscal year (FY) 2004 that called for restoring benefits to some of the 8980 immigrants who were cut from the Medicaid rolls in August. But their hopes were derailed when Governor Mitt Romney vetoed the budget measure last week.

On November 26 — just one day before Thanksgiving — the governor slashed $30 million in spending provisions from the $111 million FY ’04 supplemental budget. In a prepared statement, Romney portrayed the cuts as necessary to rein in what he called "excessive spending" at a time when Massachusetts faces a $2 billion–plus deficit in the upcoming budget cycle. He explained, "Holding the line on state spending is critical if we are to avoid tax increases that would damage the long-term economic vitality of the Commonwealth."

But this structural-deficit argument rings hollow for immigrant advocates and their legislative allies. By eliminating the measure that would have restored Medicaid to some 2500 elderly and disabled legal immigrants — less than a quarter of those legal immigrants who lost Medicaid coverage in an earlier budget cut — Romney has killed a provision that merely would have required the Division of Medical Assistance (DMA), which administers Medicaid, to re-enroll these immigrants if the $6 billion Medicaid program has surplus funds this fiscal year. Simply put, it would not have cost the state any additional money.

As Ali Noorani, the executive director of Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA), puts it, "We were not asking for new money. We were just asking for a population in need to get coverage" by using monies already appropriated to the DMA in FY ’04.

If anything, the governor’s veto strikes advocates and their legislative allies as financially shortsighted, since elderly and disabled immigrants will now have to resort to hospital emergency rooms for their care. "We act like we’re saving money with these vetoes, but it springs up in the emergency room," says Senator Mark Montigny (D–New Bedford), who helped to draft the original budget provision. He describes the governor’s action as "foolish and frivolous." In the short term, Montigny says, "we save a dollar. But you’ll pay more for it in the long run because health care is no free lunch."

Fortunately, the havoc wreaked by Romney’s budget cut isn’t a done deal. Montigny and Representative Antonio Cabral (D–Fall River), who sponsored the House version of the budget measure, are now working to line up the two-thirds vote needed for a veto override. The legislature is expected to take up the supplemental budget on January 7, 2004, when the formal session reconvenes. In the weeks ahead, Montigny, Cabral, and immigrant advocates will try to persuade the legislative leadership — i.e., House Speaker Tom Finneran — to schedule the veto for debate. And if that happens, Cabral predicts, "I believe that we have the votes. We can certainly override this veto."

In other words, stay tuned.