Health Reform for Illegal Aliens

President Obama has been busy denying that illegal aliens would receive taxpayer-funded health care under pending legislation but the legislation on the table does, honest to goodness, effectively extend coverage to illegal aliens. That is a fact not a lie, as some would have you believe.

Take the premium subsidy in the House bill, H.R. 3200. This lies in the part of the legislation (Division A, Title II) that creates a Health Choices Administration, adds the infamous “public option,” sets up and runs the “exchange” clearinghouse for getting insurance, and controls a graduated premium subsidy program through allocation of “individual affordability credits.”

The subsidy, found in Section 242, will give a voucher to people earning between 133 percent of the official poverty level and 400 percent of that income level (or, up to about $88,000 a year for a family of four).

Legal immigrants certainly qualify under H.R. 3200 for this subsidy. Section 242(a)(1) makes eligible "an individual who is lawfully present in a State in the United States (other than as a nonimmigrant described in a subparagraph (excluding subparagraphs (K), (T), (U), and (V)) of section 101(a)(15) of the Immigration and Nationality Act)."

A political fig leaf purports to keep illegal aliens from receiving the subsidy. Section 246 says, "Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States."

However, reading the legislation as a whole, its glaring omission is any requirement to verify someone’s immigration or citizenship status. For instance, H.R. 3200 makes no reference to the verification system in current law that’s used for nearly all government welfare and other public programs. If lawmakers wanted enrolling agents, including bureaucrats at the new Health Choices Administration, to use the Systematic Alienage Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, the bill should include a reference and authorize SAVE’s application to this government program.

In other words, the silence of H.R. 3200 regarding SAVE and mandatory verification makes Section 246 just empty words. In fact, the Ways and Means Committee outright voted down an amendment by Rep. Dean Heller to require eligibility verification before qualifying someone to receive a taxpayer subsidy. Also, "lawfully present" covers a lot of ground. Does it include someone here under Temporary Protected Status, for instance? Again, the absence of eligibility verification requirements leaves open a lot of room for waste, fraud, and abuse.

A similar situation of setting up blinders occurs in H.R. 3200’s Medicaid provisions. Division B’s Title VII, Section 1701 expands Medicaid eligibility to those with incomes a third above the federal poverty level. This provision dictates that "the State shall accept without further determination the enrollment under this title of an individual determined by the Commissioner to be a non-traditional Medicaid eligible individual." In other words, the bill prohibits asking any further questions about new Medicaid enrollees.

Rather, the bill section promotes "presumptive eligibility" concerning Medicaid expansion. Read it for yourself, right from Section 1702(a):

(ii) PRESUMPTIVE ELIGIBILITY OPTION- Pursuant to such memorandum, insofar as the memorandum has selected the option described in section 205(e)(3)(B) of the America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, the State shall provide for making medical assistance available during the presumptive eligibility period and shall, upon application of the individual for medical assistance under this title, promptly make a determination (and subsequent redeterminations) of eligibility in the same manner as if the individual had applied directly to the State for such assistance except that the State shall use the income-related information used by the Commissioner and provided to the State under the memorandum in making the presumptive eligibility determination to the maximum extent feasible. (emphasis added)

And, once again, the lack of any provision mentioning or requiring verification, mandatory use of the SAVE system under this part of the bill, or any other accountability requirement opens the process up to signing up illegal aliens for Medicaid.

In the Energy and Commerce Committee, a mandatory verification amendment was voted down when Rep. Nathan Deal offered it. A political figleaf amendment was added by voice vote, but the loopholes and potential for waste, fraud, and abuse remain wide open in the Medicaid provisions.

Whatever you think of health reform, a combination of things makes it certain that illegal aliens will receive government health coverage. The most obvious is the omission — heck, the outright rejection of corrective amendments — of eligibility verification requirements. The other factor is the designed ease of enrolling people in Medicaid, for "affordability credits," and the like.

Bottom line, the health legislation Congress is considering establishes an "enroll now, don’t ask questions later" regime. That’s a recipe for covering more people, but many of whom may not actually qualify. A huge number are almost guaranteed to be illegal aliens or legal immigrants still in their first five years in the country who are supposed to turn to their visa sponsor for financial support. And having more people in a public program translates pretty quickly into higher costs. In this case, we’re talking on the order of tens and hundreds of billions of dollars.

Obama's Glib Denial that Illegal Aliens will receive Benefits

It is the last thing the leftist president and the Democrat congressional leaders wanted to happen: An actual debate, an over-informed citizenry and the August congressional break before a rushed vote on government regulated health care.

At least a month of actual public exposure to Obama's health care legislation.

The magnitude of the detrimental effect of the planned takeover of American health care is quickly becoming apparent to even the least curious American voter.

As details of the scheme become known, the overexposure of the contents of "the health care reform bill" is creating a legislative pre-existing condition that the president strived to avoid at all costs ... reality.

It has become crystal clear that the decision has been made to cover a huge potential voter base for the Democrats ... illegal aliens. Contrary to constant denial from the Democrats, every version of the Obama's health care legislation would permit coverage for the victims of geography in the government regulated health insurance. And they are willing to fight for it.

The most recent effort to require use of existing tools to determine eligibility for taxpayer-funded health care benefits came from Georgia Representative Nathan Deal (R-Gainesville). He proposed a badly needed amendment that would have explicitly prohibited illegal aliens from receiving health care benefits under the health care reform bill (H.R. 3200). The horror.

Deal's amendment was defeated in committee last week along party lines. Pandering to hoped for future voters and rationality don't mix.

Still, the media and too many in GOP leadership are not making the legislation's immigration element a big issue. One Republican Congressional staffer told me this week that the bill was so bad that the bill's illegal immigration component didn't really need to be brought up.

Most longtime Americans would adamantly disagree.

Any discussion of the health care swindle that does not include the fact that Americans would be forced to further permanently subsidize illegal immigration into their nation is dangerous and incomplete.

It's neither an oversight nor a surprise that congressional Democrats have a loophole in their bill to provide government-run health care for illegal aliens.

Americans don't want the government running their health care, and they certainly don't want their tax dollars paying for health care for those who have shown no respect for our borders or the rule of law. While Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Waxman were busy navigating their own intra-party squabbles in an attempt to reach agreement on how best to nationalize America's health care system, they created several avenues by which illegal immigrants can receive health benefits at the expense of taxpaying citizens. Simply put, this is disgraceful. In the meantime, President Obama is busy making glib assurances to the contrary. Others have used the tactic of calling "liars" all those who point out the ease with which illegal aliens will be able to sign up for health care benefits.

Disgraceful or not, desperate economic times and immigration law or not, the Democrats seem to be determined to further reward illegals - even if it means a tax increase on middle-class America to finance the contemptible program.

The Associated Press - without mentioning government coverage for illegals - reports that "Obama's treasury secretary said he cannot rule out higher taxes to help tame an exploding budget deficit, and his chief economic adviser would not dismiss raising them on middle-class Americans as part of a health care overhaul."

And it is not just far-left extremists in government who support the plan. Joining such fringe groups as ACORN, La Raza, and MoveOn.org, even corporate giants like Wal-Mart have taken up the cause of redistributing the wealth.

According to Chicago Public Radio, during a health-care reform panel discussion at the recent annual National Council of La Raza convention in Chicago, Dr. John Agwunobi, a senior Wal-Mart vice-president said the company supports rewarding illegals with government health care. Of course he does. He wants to shift the burder from WalMart to the taxpayers.

To a direct question from the panel moderator, "What about health-care coverage for undocumented immigrants?" Agwunobi described Wal-Mart's position: "We believe strongly that everyone should have access to affordable health insurance. Everyone."

If Americans aren't already concerned enough about the astronomical costs of the healthcare proposal, this taxpayer-funded benefit for illegal alien lawbreakers should sound the alarms.

August is the last best hope for killing ObamaCare. Outraged Americans would be well advised to make it clear that they will not be lulled into ignoring its connection to our unsecured borders and illegal immigration.

Facts on Immigration and Health Insurance

The effect of immigration on the nation’s health care system has largely been overlooked or omitted from the discussion. This analysis is primarily based on data collected by the U.S. government in March 2008 about insurance coverage in the prior calendar year (2007).
Among the findings:
• In 2007, 33.2 percent of all immigrants (legal and illegal) did not have health insurance compared to 12.7 percent of native-born Americans.
• Immigrants account for 27.1 percent of all those without health insurance. Immigrants are 12.5 percent of the nation’s total population.
• There are 14.5 million immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 18) who lack health insurance. They account for 31.9 percent of the entire uninsured population. Immigrants and their children are 16.8 percent of the nation’s total population.
• In 2007, 47.6 percent of immigrants and their U.S.-born children were either uninsured or on Medicaid compared to 25 percent of natives and their children.
• Lack of health insurance is a significant problem even for long-time residents. Among immigrants who arrived in the 1980s, 28.7 percent lacked health insurance in 2007.
• The high level of uninsurance among immigrants is partly explained by the large share who have low levels of education. This means they often have jobs that do not provide insurance. Moreover, their lower incomes often make insurance unaffordable.
• Cultural factors may also contribute to the high rate of immigrant uninsurance. College-educated immigrants are twice as likely as college-educated natives to lack health insurance.
• In an earlier study, the Center for Immigration Studies estimated that 64 percent of illegal immigrants were uninsured in 2006, accounting for one out of seven people without insurance. If the U.S.-born children (under 18) of illegal immigrants are included, they account for one out of six people without insurance.
• Among legal immigrants (non-citizens), 27 percent were uninsured in 2006.
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Maine's Dingo Plan

You might want to check out this URL for some thoughts on what health care reform might mean.

John Stossel tells it like it is!