Thread: Hispanic Dems Want Health-Care Fix

Hispanic Dems want health-care fix

By: Carrie Budoff Brown
July 19, 2010 04:19 AM EDT

A group of Democratic lawmakers wants to use the immigration reform debate to fix one of the most hotly contested aspects of the health care law — provisions that bar immigrants from using new government programs to get coverage.

The move by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus would add a contentious new element to an already monumental task — passing a bill that puts 11 million illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship.

But the lawmakers say they’re merely following through on a pledge they made when the health care overhaul passed in March, and they expect the White House and Democratic leadership to do the same.

Some members of the caucus almost withheld their votes for health reform over what they saw as punitive, anti-immigrant measures in the bill, which bans illegal immigrants from using newly created exchanges to buy insurance, even with their own money, and maintains a five-year waiting period for legal residents to enroll in Medicaid.

They signed on only after receiving assurances that their concerns would be rectified as part of the immigration reform battle, according to lawmakers, advocates and Hill aides.

“The expectation was that everybody knew it was unfair and that a new immigration bill would correct that,â€

We are NOT rewarding Illegal Alien Invaders with ANYTHING anymore.

Oh please

GO FOR IT

The sooner the better , bring it

In this economic environment it would doom the dem party for the next 100 years.

The HC law specifically exempts illegals from the mandate to carry insurance. They are free to continue to use our hospitals free of charge.

Amnesty the Costly Price for Health Care Vote

By James R. Edwards Jr., July 19, 2010

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is pressing for amnesty, in part to qualify the current 11 million illegal aliens for public health (and other) programs. A report in Politico says these lawmakers secured the Obama administration's commitment to sweep illegals into taxpayer-funded health coverage as a condition for their votes for the health care bill:

They signed on only after receiving assurances that their concerns would be rectified as part of the immigration reform battle, according to lawmakers, advocates and Hill aides.

Now, these advocates assert, it's time to pay the piper. But the price might give the spendthrift Congress and administration heartburn.

If Democrats already can't come up with ways to pay for their lower-cost, "urgent" spending items and won't get serious about cutting runaway government spending, it's hard to imagine they can satisfy budget hawks – particularly Republican budget hawks – on the fiscal effects an amnesty would have on federal spending. We're talking about unfunded liability within wide-ranging government programs for as far into the future as the eye can see.

Indicative of resistance is how Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas responded, in the same Politico article, to the CHC's push for health care expansion through amnesty: "[T]he president and congressional Democrats are trying to get illegal immigrants into the health care system through the back door."

No responsible immigration debate can take place without taking into account the full cost burden American taxpayers would have to shoulder. And make no mistake: Amnesty will add horrendously to the size of federal expenditures. That's for everything from Medicaid, as reported in my new CIS Memorandum, and other entitlement programs to welfare, housing, and the other government programs of the welfare state. The unfunded fiscal liabilities could reach the hundreds of billions of dollars.

My memo reports that 3.1 million legalized illegals would qualify for Medicaid. That is, they earn income below 133 percent of the official poverty level. They’d cost Americans an extra $8.1 billion each year – for Medicaid alone.

The Heritage Foundation's Robert Rector calculated the net fiscal drain of immigration during the last big amnesty fight. Things haven’t improved.

This debate boils down to American fiscal self-preservation. We have enough home-grown profligate spenders and welfare constituents already. We sure don't need to import more or reward foreign lawbreakers with a permanent pass into the welfare state.

http://www.cis.org/edwards/amnesty-for-health-care-vote

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