Eliot Spitzer threat to sue Bush on immigrants' health care

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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/09 ... mmi-2.html
BY JOE MAHONEY and KATHLEEN LUCADAMO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Wednesday, September 26th 2007, 4:00 AM

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Gov. Spitzer threatened to sue the Bush administration yesterday for refusing to pay for crucial medical care for new immigrants - and criticized it for meddling in his plan to give illegal immigrants a driver's license.

"Let us not use artificial barriers, whether it is the entrance to a hospital or access to a driver's license as a false mechanism for enforcing a law that the federal government has failed to enforce," he said.

Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff's spokesman told the Daily News the agency is still reviewing the governor's plan but "there should be no uncertainty about the fact that state-issued driver's licenses in our country today are a known vulnerability."

Spitzer said Chertoff shouldn't interfere.

He snipped that Chertoff should "get the regs out, do your job, pay attention to what you are supposed to be doing."

Albany lawmakers are split on Spitzer's attempt to make it easier for immigrants to get a driver's license.

Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco (R-Schenectady) said he'll seek to pass legislation that would bar anyone who can't produce a Social Security number from getting a license and make it a criminal offense to lie on a license application.

Spitzer's plan "could allow potential terrorists to get the IDs they need to attack our way of life," said Tedisco.

The governor called on the feds to pay for chemotherapy for immigrants, legal or otherwise, who have been in the country less than five years. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services doesn't consider chemotherapy an emergency in many cases despite a doctor's diagnosis, he said.

Spitzer said "we will not hesitate" to sue if they don't reverse this decision, charging the feds are "picking on the most vulnerable population."