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There's an old TV ad for an oil filter. An auto mechanic, looking very serious, says, "You can pay me now, or pay me later."

His pitch is to do the smart thing and take care of the car now because repair costs will be higher later. Today he could say the same thing about changes in federal Medicaid regulations affecting American-born babies of low-income illegal immigrants.

The new regulations have the potential of denying immediate medical care to the babies of mothers who avoid applying for Medicaid insurance because of their illegal status. Under the new rules adopted in July, babies of illegal immigrant parents are no longer automatically enrolled in Medicaid.

Babies born here to illegal immigrants are U.S. citizens. But The New York Times reported last week that new rules will require illegal immigrants to provide documents showing their newborns are citizens.

In our rush to make life difficult for illegal immigrants, we're now going to take it out on their American-born babies by making it difficult to receive much-needed inoculations, medicines and physicals.

Could we be more cruel or short-sighted?

Arizona and the rest of the country are enacting stricter measures aimed at pushing illegal immigrants out. As the angry rhetoric over their presence and their impact on the economy and culture has increased, so have cries for their deportation.

Illegal immigrants hear this and venture less often into public. They minimize their contact with public officials and agencies in fear of detection and possible deportation.

And if illegal immigrants shy away from public health clinics, and medical services are made more difficult for their children to get, we're inviting more medical problems and higher costs, said Dr. Michelle McDonald, the county's chief medical officer.

"Curtailing health services does not strike me as well-advised," McDonald said.

Former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona said that, while he has not read the regulation changes, it makes poor public health policy to deny medical care to people who need it.

Carmona, who is teaching at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health at the University of Arizona, said the political issue of illegal immigration can be debated and resolved without taking away medical services.

By denying immunizations and proper medical treatment to some, it poses risks to others who may be exposed to communicable diseases, Carmona said.

There's a widespread theory, unproven but prevalent, that if life for illegal immigrants is made more difficult than it is now, they'll go away. They'll self-deport, to use the lingo of the theorists.

Call the theory pie-in-the-sky and its proponents wishful thinkers.

Short of a full-scale, billion-dollar-plus military deportation, a large majority of illegal immigrants probably will not leave. They're here, most of them working and praying for a sensible solution that will give them some legal status and protection.

It may make political points to deny medical care to adult illegal immigrants. But making it more difficult for their babies to receive public health services sickens our public health policy.