As expected, there are plenty of new public opinion polls on health care and health care reform.  Though some people may already be tired of the topic, it is more important now than ever that we understand where the public stands on health care, how the trends in opinion are changing, and why.  Indirectly related to issues of healthcare is a new public opinion poll on capitalism, twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

HEALTH CARE
Health Care: the Individual Mandate and a Public Option
The October Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Poll found that 66% of those surveyed report that they are in favor of requiring all Americans to have health insurance (provided there is financial help for those who need it).  A majority of those surveyed (57%) also expressed support for the creation of a government-administered public health insurance option that would compete with private insurers.  In addition, a majority expressed that “it is more important than ever to take on health care reform now” (55%).

Who will be better Off with Health Care Reform?

According to the above Kaiser poll, a majority asserted that the country as a whole would be better off if Congress passed health care reform (53%).  A plurality (41%) expressed that individually, they or their families would be better off if Congress passed health care reform, with 27% expressing that they would be worse off.

This week's Immigration Blog Roundup will cover some policy news, newly released research on immigration and more.

Washington D.C. will join 94 other jurisdictions in employing the Secure Communities program which allows authorities to check the immigration status of every person booked into a local jail.  The program which started with President Bush in 2008 has expanded under the Obama administration in an effort to target immigrants that have committed crimes.

The Center for Disease Control has lifted the requirement that young women seeking permanent residency in the United States get vaccinated for the Human Papillomavirus (HPV). 

Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Alejandro Mayorkas has stated that although it would be a last resort, the agency is considering increasing fees for immigration benefits.  After a sharp decline in immigrant benefit applications, the USCIS experienced a $164 million defecit this year.

The Migration Policy Institute released Tied to the Business Cycle: How Immigrants Fare in good and Bad Economic Times (PDF) which discusses the trend from the mid 1990's through 2007 in which immigrants surpassed native-born workers in employement rates and other market indicators.  However, the current recession starting with the housing bust in 2006 is largely responsible for reversing this trend.  A summary of details can be found here.

As part of a larger series regarding the positive economic impacts of immigration in various states, The Immigration Policy Center has released their findings on immigration in Indiana.  A fact sheet and summary of findings can be found here.

Some highlights include:

    - Immigrants in Indiana paid an estimated $2.3 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2007.
    - The purchasing power of Indiana's Latinos totaled $6.8 billion and Asians totaled $3.1 billion in 2008.
    - If all unauthorized immigrants were removed from Indiana, the state would lose $2.8 billion in expenditures, $1.3 billion in  economic output and approximately 16,700 jobs.

Lastly, in a speech made last Friday to the Center for American Progress, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano reaffirmed President Obama's support for a "tough but fair" path to legal status for illegal immigrants and said that Congress is expected to start moving on the issue early next year.

The economic stimulus package has tackled some of the most pressing job-related issues facing our communities.  However, with national unemployment at over 10% for the first time since the early 1980s, we have to make sure recovery monies are spent in communities who need help the most. We have a better chance of achieving success in these areas if we come together to ensure that our most vulnerable communities, including communities of color, immigrants, and the poor, can participate in and contribute to our economic growth.

Over the next few months, The Opportunity Agenda will be highlighting the progress that a number of community groups have had in dealing with the economic recovery. Specifically, we will be highlighting the successes and challenges that these groups have had in accessing stimulus funds, how those funds have been used to increase job opportunities and ensure economic security, and what the economic recovery package has meant for poor communities and communities of color.

As an organization working to ensure equal opportunity in the economic recovery, we have begun interviewing local and state-level groups to gain a better understanding of how our country is faring during this critical period. Today’s post centers on the our interview with Sondra Youdelman and Henry Serrano, focusing on their work with Community Voices Heard (CVH), a membership organization working to build power for low-income families in the state of New York. Sondra is the Executive Director of CVH, and Henry is their Senior Organizer/Voter Engagement Project Coordinator.

During these trying economic times, CVH has been lucky enough to achieve success by taking advantage of stimulus funding opportunities and grassroots activism. Recently, CVH won $25 million in new resources for subsidized employment, partly through regular Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) contingency money. In addition, CVH has been extremely proactive in assuring proper oversight and monitoring of public housing capital funds, specifically in the enforcement of Section 3 provisions of the 1968 Housing and Urban Development Act. The Opportunity Agenda interviewed Sondra and Henry together on October 21, 2009. Here are some portions of that interview:

During a series of trips through Europe and Asia that I completed last week, I was reminded that the Americans with Disabilities Act really is the Americans with Disabilities Act, and why our nation should be so proud of that milestone. So many of the offices, buildings, public facilities, train and plane stations that I visited were largely inaccessible to people in wheelchairs and with other disabilities. The relative progress that America has made on this issue benefits not only people with disabilities, but all of us.

Passed by Congress and signed by the first President Bush in 1990, the ADA ensures equal opportunity irrespective of disability in employment, transportation, telecommunications, public accommodations and state and federal services. Just as importantly, the law ushered in a new mindset about who we are as a society, and what equal opportunity means in America.

Equal opportunity, the ADA has helped teach us, is not about treating people identically, but about treating all of us as equals. For example, giving people in wheelchairs “access” to the same courthouse steps offered to people who can walk up those steps—as Tennessee tried to do in an important 2004 Supreme Court ADA case—is treating people identically, but not as equals. The Court correctly held in that case, Tennessee v. Lane, that requiring George Lane to crawl up a Tennessee courthouse staircase to participate in his own trial was not only unconscionable, but illegal. (Remarkably, the Court’s four most conservative justices at that time would have held that Congress lacked the power to outlaw such state practices in this manner).

For much of this decade, immigration has been an important topic on the public agenda. Nowhere is that more true than in California. The state is home to 9.9 million immigrants, its governor is an immigrant, and it is a border state on the front lines of the debate over immigration reform. State and local policies concerning immigrants are hotly debated across the state, and the raucous debate over an anti-immigrant initiative in 1996, is widely perceived to have influenced the electoral landscape in lasting ways.

Understanding the values and perspectives that Californians bring to this debate is critical. In general, Californians hold a favorable opinion of immigrants, believing that immigration is a benefit to the state. Most California adults believe undocumented immigrants should stay and work in the United States rather than be deported to their native countries.

At the same time, Californians are concerned about the impact of some aspects of immigration on their state. Most Californians attribute the majority of their population growth to immigration, while most voters also see the population growth projected for California as unsustainable, and ultimately having a negative impact on the state.

When it comes to resolving immigration-related problems, Californians were split on which presidential candidate would do a better job dealing with it in October 2008, although they voted for then Senator Barack Obama over Senator John McCain by a large margin on Election Day (Obama’s 61% to McCain’s 37%).

This past summer, The Opportunity Agenda conducted a scan to determine the state of immigration advocacy on the social web, looking specifically at the following: blogs that frequently cover politics and reach a mass audience, Twitter, YouTube, and the two largest social networking sites (Facebook and MySpace).  This research built on a similar scan we conducted in 2007.

Turning specifically to blogs, we found that while in 2007 major progressive-leaning blogs (including the DailyKos and others) were unsafe territory for immigration advocates.  Today, however, the climate is much more receptive.  Major progressive blogs discuss immigration, and the comments are usually constructive.  Meanwhile, the pro-immigration-specific blogosphere is thriving.  One such blog, Citizen Orange, counts well over 100 blogs actively advocating for practical immigration reform.

While the main point of our scan was to provide a snapshot of online immigration advocacy in the summer of 2009, our research did lead to a number of recommendations.

Today, the public will get a look at how funds distributed through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 are being spent when the reports from agencies receiving these stimulus funds are released.

While many questions will surround the release of this information, it's likely that a critical part of this story will be lost unless we ask the right questions about this spending. Namely, is this stimulus really creating a recovery for everyone?

This is an important consideration given that many groups of Americans have consistently been left behind in ways that hard work and personal achievement alone cannot address. This was true even before the economic downturn began to affect everyone else, and it's likely that the crisis has further worsened gaps in income and assets that existed already.

To get an idea of what some Americans faced before the crisis, just look at 2007, the year before the crisis began affecting everyone:

This week's immigration blog roundup will cover a number of new studies in immigration, some state news, and more.

A new report from the Department of Homeland Security provides estimates of the number of legal permanent residents living in the United States in 2008.  The report includes information on the leading countries of orgin and the leading states of residence. 

The House and Senate have voted to pass the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Conference Report, which includes an amendment to abolish the "Widow Penalty."  The new law permits widows and widowers of U.S. citizens to apply for a green card for themselves and on behalf of their foreign-born children. 

Lawmakers in Arizona are pushing for a new meaure that would allow local authorities to detain and question suspected undocumented immigrants. This new campaign comes as a result of the recent decision by the Department of Homeland Security to limit the powers of Sherriff Arpaio of Maricopa County in enforcing federal immigration laws through 287(g).