In conversation with a Republican state legislator from Fountain Hills, Arizona, the woman legislator believes Arizona has no responsibility to educate the children of the undocumented and for the good of Arizona, undocumented Hispanics and their children should go back to Mexico.

Across the United States, this sentiment of Hispanics should go back to Mexico has an adverse impact on assimilation of American Hispanics not only in Arizona but throughout America.

Arizona Republican legislators are cutting back on essential services and programs such as education but even more immediately devastating is the lack of health care for Arizona residents and the downward spiral each day of decreasing the Arizona's heath care services that have an impact on all low and middle income Arizonans which includes Arizona American Hispanics.

KidsCare

The latest blow to low income Arizonans is 10,000 working parents will lose health insurance because Arizona is unwilling to provide matching funds for federal program.

Nearly 10,000 working parents will lose their health insurance this month in the wake of state budget cuts, leaving some families with nowhere to turn as they seek affordable coverage.

KidsCare, a program that provides low-income families with inexpensive insurance. The Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS), which administers the program, could not pay the $6 million annual cost following cuts by the Legislature. Arizona faces a $3 billion budget shortfall.

The move comes as demand for government assistance is skyrocketing. Arizona has lost an estimated 240,000 jobs since December 2007, and AHCCCS has added 150,000 people to its rolls since January.

Families received letters last week, informing them parents will have no insurance as of October 1. Children covered by KidsCare will keep their health insurance.

KidsCare Parents began in 2003 as an extension of the federal State Children's Health Insurance Program, called KidsCare in Arizona. To be eligible for coverage, families had to make less than two times the federal poverty level, or about $44,000 a year for a family of four.

For a $6 million annual contribution, Arizona received $18 million in federal grants to administer the program for parents. Patient premiums, which were set at 3 to 4 percent of monthly income, covered the rest.

"The impact is devastation," said Dana Naimark, president of the Children's Action Alliance, a Phoenix non-profit that advocates for social services. "Parents are making desperate phone calls to anywhere they can think of, and the problem is there are almost no alternatives for them."

AHCCCS recommends families without health insurance seek care at community health centers, which provide basic care on a sliding-fee scale. But those centers have also lost state funding, advocates said, and some are being stretched to the breaking point.

The centers also can't provide the more specialized care needed by many people enrolled in KidsCare Parents.

The KidsCare Parents, a program that provides low-income families with inexpensive insurance, will end September 30. The Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, which administers the program, could not pay the $6 million annual cost following cuts by the Legislature.

Nowhere was the impact of this Hispanic growth felt as much as the 2008 presidential election when Hispanics turned away from Republicans and supported the election of a Democrat enabling a black named Barack Obama to become President of the United States.

American Hispanics carry California, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Florida. In the 2010 congressional elections, American Hispanics will add Arizona and Texas giving American Hispanics one third of the electoral votes in electing the next President of the United States.

Thereafter, with each succeeding presidential election, American Hispanics will add additional states. It will be forever more American Hispanics who will decide who becomes President of the United States.