Speech #920302213

Mr. President. the pending Hartke amendment adds $3.25 million for health care for migrant and seasonal farmworkers. No single group in our Nation is as exploited as migrant workers who harvest the food we eat. There is no working group in the United States which lives in worse housing than migrants. Wages received by migrants are among the lowest of the working poor. Federal child labor laws do not apply to migrants. Constant mobility itself damages the physical and mental health of migrants. These people suffer from malnutrition. In fact. 25 percent of migrant children have anemia. Statistics document that infant mortality is 25 percent higher among migrants than the national average. Mortality rates for tuberculosis and other infectious diseases among migrants are 21/2 times the national rate. Mr. President. the per capita expenditure for migrant health is $12 compared to the national average of $250 per person. With all of the horrible living and working conditions which migrants must endure. the plain fact is that we are not spending enough money on health services for migrant workers. A November 1969 task force of the Department of Health. Education. and Welfare concluded that few States provide any medical assistance under medicaid for migrants. A 1971 report of the Office of Economic Opportunity found only 3.2 percent of migrants throughout the Nation covered by medicaid. with very few eligible for either medicare or private health insurance benefits. Because of inadequate funding. the Federal migrant health program reaches less than 10 percent of the eligible migrant. population. Present law authorizes a mere $30 million for migrant health. If that were distributed on a per capita basis among every migrant worker and dependenti it would come to only $30 per person per year in health expenditures for migrants. That is less than onefourth the national average. As meager as this expenditure is. the pending Senate bill appropriating funds for migrant health provides for only $26.75 million. The pending Hartke amendment would bring that appropriation up to the full authorization level of $30 million. Mr. President. at this time I ask unanimous consent that an article from the Washington Post describing the plight of hungry migrant children be printed in the RECORD. Mr. President. we have made many promises to the migrant workers of this Nation. The least we can do is to provide full funding for the one program we have to meet their health needs. Mr. President. the pending amendment deals with migrant and seasonal farmworkers. It would add $3.250.000. up to the full amount of the authorization. In other words. what we do here is deal with those members of society who are our most poorly treated. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the RECORD an article published in the Washington Post of May 1. 1972. entitled "United States Bungling Food Aid for Migrants." written by Austin Scott.