Thread: WA: Health care legislation: Non-citizens to benefit most

Health care for all kids will cost a lot more than legislators planned
Non-citizens to benefit most, new figures show
By CHRIS McGANN
P-I CAPITOL CORRESPONDENT

OLYMPIA -- One of the Democrats' most heralded legislative accomplishments was criticized Thursday when new data revealed that the measure providing health care for all of Washington's children mainly helps non-citizen children and will cost almost twice as much as predicted.

Republicans slammed the program and the fact that the number of immigrant recipients -- many of whom are in the United States illegally -- would be far more than originally stated, more than 16,000 by June 2009 compared with the previous estimate of 6,680.

The GOP has long complained that illegal immigrants would have increased access to state-funded health care. Democrats, including Gov. Chris Gregoire, said all children should have health care regardless of their immigration status.

But now the focus has shifted to how much that will cost, and even Democrats who supported the bill raised concerns.

Kirsta Glenn, executive director of the state's Caseload Forecast Council, said the increase came mainly from an unanticipated number of non-citizen siblings of citizen children now covered by the program.

"No one really thought there were very many kids in this category, but once they went about investigating to implement the bill, they discovered a lot of kids were in this category," she said.

Republicans said the fiscal impact would be profound -- almost $16 million more than the $29 million estimate -- a 54 percent cost increase.

Of that $45 million, $12 million will be spent on citizen children who previously were uninsured. About $8 million will be spent on children who are U.S. citizens who already are covered by other insurance programs. And $25 million will be spent on non-citizen children.

Victor Moore, director of the state Office of Financial Management, said there is no question that more children are eligible for the program than originally estimated.

"We didn't think there would be this many," he said. "But now we know more kids will have health care coverage."

Moore said critics are also not taking into account that the impact is being substantially offset by $19 million of new federal funds.

"The net impact to the budget is a $6 million increase," Moore said. The state's two-year budget is $33 billion.

The program goes into effect July 22.

Sen. Joe Zarelli, R-Ridgefield, pointed out that the same agencies that provided preliminary information for the Legislature reported the adjusted figures.

"So it was information that could not be discovered in a 105-day session but then discovered in the last six weeks," he said.

Sen. Darlene Fairley, D-Lake Forest Park, was upset that the original estimate of the number of people covered was so far off.

"Like a miracle, they just appeared," Fairley said. "You know, when we do fiscal notes we kind of really like to know how many people we are talking about."

But Fairley stressed she would have supported the bill anyway.

"It would not have made a bit of difference as to whether or not we would do it, because all children means all children," she said. "But that's the point of budgeting, you know how many and what it's going to cost. I would have thought they could have done a better job at coming up with better numbers ... (on) the impact this would have."

Zarelli said the news should come as no surprise.

"During the session in the fiscal note, they called this number indeterminate, so they called it zero and we didn't fund for it. Lo and behold, a couple of weeks after session we all of a sudden find out that the greatest portion of those new kids we are going to cover are kids who have no legal status here in this country."

Zarelli said the measure is a "move towards a lot of people's goal of more of a universal state-funded health care, and that's to bring all the kids in first and then move the families in."

That's not where Republicans want to go.

"I want to fix the private market," he said. "I want people to have a choice in the marketplace."

P-I reporter Chris McGann can be reached at 360-943-3990 or chrismcgann@seattlepi.com.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/320 ... ney22.html

What are they thinking!! Washingtonians, rise up!!

What is it about politicans that they think that americans want to fund illegal children. They need to be home not in our country.