Patterico's Pontifications

10/9/2014

Immigrants Sue Feds for Kicking Them Off ObamaCare Plans Without First Sending Notices In Their Native Languages

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 6:24 pm



Nothing like a good court battle over the awful discrimination of getting notices in the languages that Americans typically use (I speak here, of course, of both English and Spanish):

Two immigration groups have filed legal complaints against the Obama administration for kicking over one hundred thousand Obamacare customers off their insurance plans without sending notices in their native language, Modern Healthcare reports.

The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) and Philadelphia’s Southeast Asian Mutual Assistance Associations Coalition (SEAMACC) have both filed complaints with Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights. The groups believe the Obama administration’s move to end the health plans of customers who failed to prove their legal immigration or citizenship status violate customers’ rights as immigrants.

Uh-oh! Sounds like someone’s administration is not being multiculturally sensitive! Not naming any names, of course.

Naturally, the whole thing is a travesty to begin with. Whether a few immigrants get tossed off doesn’t matter much, compared to the abomination that ObamaCare is in its entirety.

12 Responses to “Immigrants Sue Feds for Kicking Them Off ObamaCare Plans Without First Sending Notices In Their Native Languages”

  1. Groan. Never let a crisis go to waste. The grievance industry is seeing dollar signs!

    Also, officials in Dallas are “scrambling” to find interpreters in the appropriate dialects so that they can tell our guests there that they are quarantined and in danger of getting Ebola.

    Perhaps the guests should have scrambled to learn the language of the country they have
    settled in, illegally.

    Patricia (5fc097)

  2. This may be a getting Al Capone for tax evasion situation. From the Daily Caller link, it appears that many immigrants did get the message and sent in or attempted to send in the required documentation but CMS screwed up. Since you cannot sue government employees for being too stupid to live, the immigrants might have to find their legal theory under the language access provision as their only recourse.

    nk (dbc370)

  3. One of the many things I would insist on in any “reform” dealing with the illegals is that if you want to stay you have better have learned English by the time we come around and ask.

    Kevin M (b357ee)

  4. Although, reading the Daily Caller article, this might not be a silly as it sounds. If the law allows LEGAL immigrants to sign up, people have done so AND paid their premiums, and the law also requires that the federal website have multiple language capability AND it doesn’t, then they have a case for why they haven’t been able to follow instructions.

    Now, in Kevin’s perfect universe immigrants would be expected to learn the native language as a condition moving from probationary residence to permanent residence. As well as some other things, like being self-supporting and staying out of trouble. But, sadly, we’re not there.

    Kevin M (b357ee)

  5. That boat sailed a long time ago and it’s not 21st Century PC. Crawford Avenue was renamed Pulaski Road in Chicago seventy years ago and driver’s license tests in Illinois were not only in English and Spanish but also in Polish and Greek, and I don’t know how many other languages, at least forty-five years ago. It’s been the law longer than that, that if you’re over fifty, you can take the citizenship test in your native language. Politicians cater to ethnic minorities.

    nk (dbc370)

  6. This is kind of a fun little diversion. Will this story get the running- for- re-election- Dem governor sympathy, or derision I wonder.

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-oregon-governors-fiancee-immigrant-20141009-story.html

    elissa (630ebc)

  7. this is why we can’t have nice things:

    http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-courts-voter-id-20141009-story.html

    narciso (ee1f88)

  8. nk–I have been an election judge for several decades and the first time the ballots here were printed in both Spanish and English was after the last census. The food nutrition labels printed in dual Spanish English also changed around that same time. The recently arrived Poles, Russians, Chinese, Sudanese, and Koreans are on their own and still have to struggle to know what to eat, though. But if they are citizens who know English (and most of them do) they have no trouble voting.

    elissa (630ebc)

  9. I know that about voting, elissa. But non-English speaking voters are allowed to vote with assistance and I was my mother’s assistant. She would order me to punch for all the women, regardless of anything else.

    nk (dbc370)

  10. What a minute. I know that we (idiotically) don’t have an “official” language, but aren’t all, um, legal immigrants required to demonstrate at least a minimal proficiency in English? I mean it would greatly increase their economic opportunities, plus you might be able to, y’know, read gov’t notifications..?

    As a former election judge, I always wondered why I was required to post notices in three languages. If you can vote, you should be a citizen, yes? (Even if a Dem, at least a dead citizen, but citizen nonethless). And if a citizen, then a minimal (or better-!) proficiency in English. So why English/Spanish/Vietnamese posters..??

    NeoCon_1 (bc232b)

  11. elissa, this is what bugs me about the spread of the bilingual America. Everything is in Spanish and English. Around our county, over 90 languages are spoken!

    So it’s like officials are saying, all you immigrants are doing fine, but these dumb Hispanics just can’t figure out what to eat or where to make a left-hand turn, so we cater to them.

    Patricia (5fc097)

  12. elissa… it troubles me not that recently arrived Russkies get hind синица.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)


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