ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA
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According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR),
in 2004 California's estimated cost of unreimbursed medical care was
$1.4 billion. Texas estimated its cost at $850 million annually, and
Arizona at $400 million.
Non-border states shoulder heavy burdens as well. Virginia's annual
cost of providing health care for undocumented workers is
approximately $100 million per year, FAIR reports, while Florida's
health care cost is about $300 million annually.
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Tell Congress No Health Insurance for Illegal Aliens
FaxDC.com wants to send this urgent and personalized Blast Fax
message to all 535 members of the House and Senate for YOU.
Alert: Democrats moved one step closer to giving free health
insurance to the nation's estimated 12 million illegal aliens when
they successfully defeated a Republican-backed amendment, offered by
Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., that would have prevented illegal aliens
from receiving government-subsidized health care under the proposed
plan backed by House Democrats and President Barack Obama.
The House Ways and Means Committee nixed the Heller amendment by a
26-to-15 vote along straight party lines, and followed this action by
passing the 1,018-page bill early Friday morning by a 23-to-18
margin, with three Democrats voting against the plan.
The Democratic plan will embrace Obama's vision of bringing free
government medical care to more than 45 million uninsured people in
America a significant portion of whom are illegal aliens.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, costs under
the Obama plan being proposed by the House will saddle citizens with
$1.04 trillion in new federal outlays over the next decade.
Congressional Democrats and Obama have argued that their health plan
is necessary to contain rising health care costs.
But, last Thursday, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf testified before
the Senate Budget Committee and warned lawmakers that the proposed
legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for
health care costs."
A key factor increasing costs is that Democratic plan provides for
blanket coverage to as much as 15 percent of the U.S. population not
currently insured, including illegals.
Democrats had insisted throughout the health-care reform debate that
illegals would be ineligible for the so-called public option plan
that is to be subsidized by taxpayers.
"We're not going to cover undocumented aliens, undocumented workers,"
Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the chairman of the Senate Finance
Committee, told reporters in May. "That's too politically explosive."
Republicans, however, point out that the Democrats, by refusing to
accept the Heller amendment, would deny health agencies from
conducting simple database checks to verify citizenship. Many states
give illegals driver licenses, which will be sufficient to get free
health care under the plan.
Critics also contend that millions of illegals who already have
counterfeit Social Security cards or other fraudulent documents.
There is no enforcement mechanism in the legislation, experts say, to
prevent illegals who use fake IDs to obtain jobs from also obtaining
taxpayer-subsidized health insurance.
GOP representatives introduced the amendment to provide a way to weed
out non-citizens from the program.
A description of the amendment on Heller's Web site state it would
"better screen applicants for subsidized health care to ensure they
are actually citizens or otherwise entitled to it."
The Web post added, "The underlying bill is insufficient for the
purpose of preventing illegal aliens from accessing the bill's
proposed benefits, as it does not provide mechanisms allowing those
administering the program to ensure illegal aliens cannot access
taxpayer-funded subsidies and benefits."
The Heller amendment would have required that individuals applying
for the public health care option would be subject to two systems
used to verify immigration status already in use by the government:
The Income and Eligibility Verification System (IEVS) and the
Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program.
The two systems cross-reference Social Security numbers and
employment information to establish whether an individual is a U.S.
citizen.
Critics: Free Health Care Means More Illegals
A recent Rasmussen Reports poll found that an overwhelming 80 percent
of Americans oppose covering illegals in any public health care bill.
Anti-immigration activists say the availability of low-cost benefits,
including health insurance and in-state tuition, will only lure more
immigrants to come to the United States.
Political analyst Dick Morris, in his recently released best-selling
book Catastrophe, warns that giving illegal free health care will
lead to a flood of new illegals who can take advantage of such a
benefit not offered in their home countries.
William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration, agrees
with that sentiment, writing, "Each state and federal elected
official must know that illegal aliens should not be given licenses,
in-state tuition, mortgages, bank accounts, welfare, or any other
benefit short of emergency medical care and law enforcement
accommodations before they are deported."
But a small fraction of illegals end up deported, as many make
widespread use of fake IDs to easily gain access to government
benefits programs.
"Experts suggest that approximately 75 percent of working-age illegal
aliens use fraudulent Social Security cards to obtain employment,"
wrote Ronald W. Mortensen in a recent Center for Immigration Studies
research paper. Mortensen says one of the big misconceptions about
illegals is that they are undocumented.
James R. Edwards Jr., co-author of The Congressional Politics of
Immigration Reform, recently wrote on National Review Online that
"it's hard to envision how health reform can avoid tripping the
immigration booby trap."
Edwards says none of the legislation under consideration actually
requires any state, federal, or local agency to check the immigration
status of those who apply for the program.
The assumption is that companies have vetted their employees to
ensure they are eligibility for legal employment a difficult task for
employers given the active market in fraudulent documents. Thus
Edwards maintains "some of the money distributed … inevitably would
go to illegal aliens."
The estimates of illegal aliens in the United States without health
insurance vary. The most commonly cited statistic, attributed to the
Center for Immigration Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau, holds
that 15 percent to 22 percent of the nation's 46 million uninsured
are illegal aliens. That would be between 6.9 million and 10.1
million people. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama claimed
the nation United States has 12 million or more undocumented aliens.
John Sheils of the Lewin Group, a health care consulting firm owned
by UnitedHealth Group, recently told National Public Radio that about
6.1 million illegals about half of all illegals in the United States
lack documentation and therefore would not be legally eligible for
benefits under the current health care reforms.
Sheils says the other half of the nation's illegals 5 million to 6
million use false documents to obtain on-the-books employment. Many
of them are already insured under their employers' plans, he added.
"A lot of those people are getting employer health benefits as part
of their compensation," Sheils told NPR.
Certainly, some contend that undocumented workers who are gainfully
employed and receiving benefits such as health insurance are
contributing to society. But the fact remains that, once equipped
with a fake ID, a person in the United States illegally can obtain
both a job and the benefits that go with it.
Estimates of the cost of providing illegals with medical care vary.
Most uninsured illegals who need medical attention obtain it from
hospital emergency rooms. And several states are already straining
under the huge burden of paying for the health costs of illegal
aliens.
According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR),
in 2004 California's estimated cost of unreimbursed medical care was
$1.4 billion. Texas estimated its cost at $850 million annually, and
Arizona at $400 million.
Non-border states shoulder heavy burdens as well. Virginia's annual
cost of providing health care for undocumented workers is
approximately $100 million per year, FAIR reports, while Florida's
health care cost is about $300 million annually.
One of the ironies of the proposed legislation is that it would fine
American citizens who opt not to purchase insurance coverage, but
would exempt illegals from such fines. This is presumably due to the
fact that they are not supposed to participate in the program anyway.
Even if no illegals were likely to benefit from health care reform,
Democrats have made it clear that amnesty is the next item on their
ambitious legislative agenda.
"I've got to do health care, I've got to do energy, and then I'm
looking very closely at doing immigration," Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid, D-Nev., declared in June.
Reid explained the urgent need for amnesty in terms very similar to
those that Democrats have used to press for health care reform. "We
have an immigration system that's broken and needs repair," Reid said.
(THE COSTS FOR ILLEGALS IN REID’S STATE OF NEVADA ARE SOARING. THE COST OF EMERGENCY ROOM SERVICES FOR ILLEGALS HAS DOUBLED. HIS STATE IS NOW 25% ILLEGAL. REID IS LA RAZA ENDORSED. HIS BIG GAMBLING PAYMASTERS HAVE VOWED THEY WILL NEVER PAY LIVING WAGES TO LEGALS!)
Immigration expert Edwards, for one, says health-care reform may
itself need serious medical attention before it is healthy enough
pass through Congress.
"The American people may soon realize how much health reform will
benefit immigrants and cost the native-born," he writes. "When that
happens, the volatile politics of immigration could derail universal
health care." (Newsmax)
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