WA: GOP complains health insurance money going to illegal immigrants

BY BRAD SHANNON

THE OLYMPIAN

A state senator raised concerns today that Washington’s expansion of children’s health insurance coverage next month will cover 7,000 more non-citizens than previously thought.

The effect of the caseload change, Republican Sen. Joseph Zarelli of Ridgefield said, is to boost costs of the program about 54 percent, to $45 million in the two-year budget cycle that starts July 1.

Of that, $25 million will be spent on illegal immigrants, Zarelli asserted in a data sheet his aides handed out before a quarterly meeting of the state Caseload Forecast Council.

It said the public should decide whether the state should be paying so much to insure non-citizens’ kids, some of whom are illegal residents, when many citizens do not have health care.

“It’s an issue with the public that needs to be debated. It is not just for us in Olympia to decide,â€