Thread: Healthcare scheme would benefit illegal immigrants

Healthcare scheme would benefit illegal immigrants
By Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas)
Posted: 08/03/09 06:08 PM [ET]

While much of the public debate surrounding the Democrats’ healthcare plan has focused on the massive costs to be paid by American taxpayers, another flaw has stayed under the radar — until last week. That’s when the National Council of La Raza and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus pushed to include illegal immigrants in the president’s healthcare effort.

Despite statements to the contrary, the Obama administration could force the American people to pay for the healthcare of millions of illegal immigrants in the U.S.

The Democrats’ bill in the House, H.R. 3200, contains gaping loopholes that will allow illegal immigrants to receive taxpayer-funded benefits. And these loopholes are no accident.

The legislation contains no verification mechanism to ensure that illegal immigrants do not apply for benefits. Republicans offered an amendment to close this loophole — it would have required verification using the existing methods that are already in place to verify eligibility for other federal benefits programs. But, when they were asked to put the language of the bill where their words were, in a party-line vote, House Democrats rejected the amendment to require verification and close this loophole.

The bill also leaves open the possibility that if one citizen family member is eligible for benefits, then the entire family — including illegal immigrants — is also eligible for the benefits.

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

Take just the uninsured: According to the latest research from the Pew Hispanic Center, 59 percent of all illegal immigrant adults lacked health insurance in 2007. These figures are dramatically higher than the 14 percent uninsured rate for U.S.-born adults. The children of illegal immigrants are also uninsured at extremely high rates — 45 percent of their foreign-born children are uninsured!

Of course, when it comes to illegal immigration, taxpayer-provided health insurance represents just part of the cost. Healthcare for illegal immigrants costs Americans at least $1 billion each year, not including health costs for children and the elderly. In my home state of Texas, just the price tag of educating the children of illegal immigrants adds up to around $4 billion annually!

The president claims that there is an easy solution to this problem: legalize the millions of illegal immigrants in America today. But amnesty for 11 million illegal immigrants would have a disastrous impact on the American economy.

First, as we saw in 1986, amnesty only serves to encourage more illegal immigration. Our economy is already stretched thin without having more millions of illegal immigrants draining our limited resources, making less available for citizens and legal immigrants.

Second, if we legalize 11 million illegal immigrants today, what will happen when they decide to retire in the future? Robert Rector at the Heritage Foundation found that the net governmental cost for elderly immigrants with low skills amounts “to $17,000 per person per year … half of this cost was medical expenditures under the Medicare and Medicaid programs.â€

Obama's Socialist have gone too far.

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Take just the uninsured: According to the latest research from the Pew Hispanic Center, 59 percent of all illegal immigrant adults lacked health insurance in 2007. These figures are dramatically higher than the 14 percent uninsured rate for U.S.-born adults. The children of illegal immigrants are also uninsured at extremely high rates — 45 percent of their foreign-born children are uninsured!

The Elites just love to keep the profits from cheap labor while they socialize the costs!

Dave Gibson
Norfolk Crime Examiner

Illegal aliens will be covered under Obama’s healthcare bill

August 3, 9:49 PM
USAToday

About a week ago, the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee defeated an amendment which would have excluded illegal aliens from Obama’s massive healthcare bill. In addition to replacing our private healthcare system with a government-run program, many have argued that this bill is in fact, a ‘backdoor’ amnesty.

The Democratically-controlled committee voted 23-18 to defeat the measure introduced by Rep. Dean Heller (R-NV), which would have required the use of the existing Income and Eligibility Verification System and the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements System, before any care is given. This move would have ensured that only U.S. citizens would receive the taxpayer funded care.

While Obama has made claims that illegal aliens will not be covered by his plan, the following line can be found among the 1018 page bill: Sec. 59B, Pg. 170, Line 1 - “Any NONRESIDENT alien is exempt from individual taxes.â€

this is not fair. to include Illegal Aliens in health reform at the expense of American Taxpayers IS WRONG! NOW IF LARAZA AND OTHERS LIKE THEM WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT ILLEGAL HISPANICS HAVE HEALTH CARE,THEN LET THEM TAKE CARE OF THEM. NOW SOME OF YOU MIGHT GET ANGRY WITH ME FOR SAYING THIS BUT, I'M JUST TELLING THE TRUTH. THESE GROUPS ARE ONLY CONCERNED WITH THE ILLEGAL HISPANICS AND THATS THE TRUTH. THEY ARE ALREADY RECEIVING MEDICAID. THE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE IS BROKE BECAUSE OF TAKING CARE OF PEOPLE WHO ARE LIVING AND WORKING IN THE COUNTRY ILLEGALLY.