INSURANCE SHIFT A SURPRISE TO PRO-ILLEGAL GROUPS; OBAMA PROPOSAL HIT BY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT ADVOCATES AND SOME DEMOCRATS

Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Florida)
September 16, 2009 Wednesday
Broward Metro Edition
Peter Wallsten Tribune Newspapers Richard Simon

WASHINGTON, D.C. - President Barack Obama in recent days has staked out a conservative position on the treatment of illegal immigrants in his health care overhaul - a new stance that has surprised some of his fellow Democrats and provoked outrage among advocates for illegal immigrants.

Bills in the House and Senate would give low-income people subsidies to buy health insurance, and the legislation specifically bars illegal immigrants from receiving those subsidies.

But Obama would go further, barring undocumented immigrants from buying insurance even with their own money through a new, government-arranged insurance marketplace that is designed to make it easier for consumers to find a health policy.

That position, say critics, is counter-productive, as it would force more illegal immigrants to abandon private insurance and rely instead on taxpayer-supported hospital emergency rooms for care.

The White House had revealed its conservative position on Friday, in the wake of a renewed debate over illegal immigration that was triggered when Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., heckled Obama on the issue during the president's address to Congress.

But in trying to tamp down conservative claims that undocumented immigrants would benefit from the bills, the administration has sparked a fight with those on the political left, some of whom charge that the White House has simply given Wilson and other conservatives the policy victory they wanted.

"The guy acted like a buffoon, and everybody criticized him, but then at the end of the day he sort of got his way," said Brent Wilkes, national executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens.

The most fiery response came from Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., an early Obama ally, who told a crowd of Latino leaders in Spanish Monday that the administration was "giving Rep. Wilson exactly what he wants," according to a translation posted on an ABC News Web site.

Wilson's outburst had come in response to Obama's statement that a health care overhaul would not directly benefit illegal immigrants. "The reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally," the president had said.

A White House official said Tuesday that Obama's stance barring undocumented immigrants from participating in a new government-run insurance marketplace did not reflect a change of heart after Wilson's outburst-only that the specific question had just come up in recent days.

The White House began laying out the details on Friday, circulating an e-mail to reporters explaining for the first time the president's view that illegal immigrants would be blocked from the so-called insurance "exchange"-even to buy health insurance with their own money.

As they can today, undocumented immigrants could still buy insurance in the private market. But the e-mail noted that if the Democratic legislation passes, private insurers are expected to sell more insurance through the "exchange" and less insurance outside of it, leaving the private market to shrink over time.

The White House also embraced a verification system to show that consumers are in the country legally. That idea had been rejected by House Democrats, who cited studies showing such systems are costly and prone to mistakes in flagging eligible people as ineligible.

pwallsten@tribune.com

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