Blue Cross of California Will Continue To Accept Mexican Identification Cards for Health Insurance Applications

Blue Cross of California will continue to allow undocumented immigrants to use their Mexican identification cards to apply for and obtain health insurance, officials for Blue Cross and the Mexican Consulate office in Fresno announced Wednesday, the Fresno Bee reports. The matricula consular, which lists the name and address of the cardholder and includes a photo, already has been accepted for identification purposes by banks and police agencies in the United States for more than a year. Health Net of California also allows the use of the matricula consular to apply for health insurance. Blue Cross officials hope that by allowing undocumented immigrants to use their Mexican identification card for health insurance, they will help "minimize or keep California's health care crisis from spiraling out of control," according to the Bee. The insurer is targeting primarily individuals in families with annual incomes of $50,000 or more, who comprise about two-thirds of the state's 6.2 million uninsured patients. "We have a health care crisis because there's too many uninsured using the system. We would rather have them insured and paying into the system than draining the system," Blue Cross spokesperson Michael Chee said. But some Mexican nationals said they still do not have sufficient incomes to apply for health insurance. Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., said, "We have a health care crisis because we are importing a million poor and uneducated (people) a year into our economy." Krikorian added that allowing undocumented immigrants to use their identification cards to obtain health insurance will suggest that being an undocumented immigrant is "OK" and would not "change the health care system" (Colon, Fresno Bee, 4/15).