Friday, August 31, 2012

OBAMA'S HEALTHCARE and ILLEGALS - The Staggering Cost of Expanding the LA RAZA Welfare State in Our Borders



Fathom this:

"Obama wants every citizen to prove that they are insured, but people don't have to prove that they are citizens" . . . Ben Stein

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OBAMA DOES NOT DO ANYTHING THAT DOES NOT SERVE HIS CORPORATE PAYMASTERS, OR EXPAND HIS LA RAZA PARTY BASE OF VOTING ILLEGALS!

OBAMA LIED!!! THAT OBAMAcare DID NOT INCLUDE ILLEGALS!!! HE LIED IN OUR FACE OFF THE FLOOR OF THE SENATE – State of the Union MESSAGE. HE AND PELOSI DEVISED IT SO THAT IT WAS !!! ILLEGAL !!! FOR HEALTHCARE PRACTITIONERS TO ASK IF THE ILLEGAL IS ILLEGAL!

IN CALIFORNIA ALONE, 84 HOSPITALS HAVE BEEN BANKRUPTED BY LEGALLY HAVING TO BE MEXICO’S “FREE” HEALTHCARE SYSTEM! IF YOU WONDERED WHY YOU HAD TO PAY $80 FOR AN ASPIRIN IN WHILE IN THE HOSPITAL, YOU’RE SUPPORTING OBAMA’S LA RAZA PARTY BASE OF ILLEGALS AND THE FREE HEALTHCARE THEY GET IN AMERICA.

IN CA, HOSPITALS PUT OUT $1.2 BILLION PER YEAR IN “FREE” EMERGENCY ROOM HEALTH CARE FOR LA RAZA!!!

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Where To Go When Your Local Emergency Room Goes Bankrupt?"

                                           
During the past ten years  84 California hospitals have declared bankruptcy and closed down their Emergency Rooms forever.  Financially crippled by legistlative and judicial mandates to treat illegal aliens have bankrupted hospitals!   In 2010, in Los Angeles County alone, over 2 million illegal aliens recorded visits to county emergency rooms for both routine and emergency care.  Per official figures, the cost is $1,000 dollars for every taxpayer in Los Angeles County.   


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“That is why the Obama healthcare program is supported by major sections of big business, including the bulk of those corporations—drug manufacturers, health insurance companies, and giant hospital chains—whose profit drive is fundamentally responsible for the healthcare crisis.

The Obama plan has been drawn up in close consultation with these corporate interests, who have been given explicit assurances that their profits will not be threatened. It is the patients, i.e., the entire American population, who will bear the cost, through the establishment of a two-class healthcare system—first-class care for those who can afford it, and cut-rate care for the vast majority.”

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WSWS.ORG

Healthcare and the social crisis in America

17 August 2009

A tidal wave of suffering and human need has been on display this week at a free healthcare clinic inside a Los Angeles-area sports arena. Just as the New Orleans Superdome, packed with refugees from Hurricane Katrina, shocked the world in 2005, the scene in Inglewood, California gives a glimpse of the social crisis devastating America. And it could be multiplied, a thousand times over, in every city, suburb and rural district of the United States, as deepening unemployment and spreading homelessness exacerbate what was already a vast unmet need for healthcare services.

Thousands of uninsured workers and their families have flocked to the Forum at Inglewood since Tuesday, seeking free medical and dental care from a group of volunteer doctors, dentists and nurses. The Forum, formerly the suburban home of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team, became for a week the site of the largest free medical clinic in American history.

The organizers of the event, the Remote Area Medical Foundation, a Tennessee-based charity that relies on contributions of money and medical supplies and volunteer medical personnel, said that more than 8,000 people would receive help at the Forum before the event was finished. In the first three days alone, 706 teeth were extracted, 1,640 fillings put in, 141 mammograms administered and 550 sets of eyeglasses prepared. There were hundreds of pap smears and tuberculosis tests. Some patients were put directly into waiting ambulances and taken to local emergency rooms.

Many of the patients waited for hours or slept overnight in their cars to make sure they did not lose their place in line. The demand has overwhelmed the supply of volunteers, with foundation leader Stan Brock saying the clinic had work for 100 dentists and 20 eye doctors, more than three times the number who were mobilized.

Remote Area Medical has focused on impoverished third-world countries for more than 20 years, beginning with clinics in the Amazon jungle of Brazil. But in recent years it has begun to work inside the United States, including in New Orleans after Katrina, and earlier this year in the Appalachian foothills of Virginia, where volunteer dentists performed more than 4,300 tooth extractions in two days.

The Los Angeles event was made possible by a group of film and record producers who learned of the charity’s activities from a “60 Minutes” profile and contacted Brock. The Forum, now owned by a local church, was chosen as a centrally located site, close to the densely populated south side Los Angeles.

One volunteer dentist who spoke to the local media said that conditions in Los Angeles were worse than in Brazil, where he has done equivalent charity work. “They have a nice system of public hospitals and clinics,” he said, referring to Brazil. A volunteer doctor, when asked about the difference between Third World conditions and those in Los Angeles, responded, “Here the people speak English.”

According to local press accounts, among those seeking help at the clinic were:

• A homeless man who camped outside in order to get glasses
• An unemployed grocery clerk needing a root canal
• A laid-off auto mechanic with back pain
• A laid-off office worker uninsured for two years
• A cancer patient who had exhausted her benefits under her HMO plan
• A community college student with sinus problems and blurred vision
• A laid-off security guard who needed glasses
• An unemployed grocery clerk with a toothache
• A woman whose children are covered under the state Medi-Cal plan but lacks insurance for herself
• A county government worker whose dental insurance deductibles were too high to afford treatment for her husband and three-year-old daughter
• A retired welder who lost his coverage while he was in the middle of getting dentures
• A couple, both employed, who between them needed dentures, a general physical, a breast exam and a pap smear
• A diabetic amputee who could not afford to buy needed drugs
• A retiree needing an X-ray for a lung problem
• A 70-year-old Vietnam vet who put off a root canal for two years because the VA hospital was overwhelmed with more urgent cases
• A 63-year-old woman who received her first new pair of glasses in five years
• A 46-year-old woman who had an abnormal pap smear last year but was unable to follow up because Medi-Cal denied her coverage.

Carol Meyer, a top official of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, visited the Forum and drew the obvious lesson, telling reporters: “The current system of healthcare in the United States is broken.” Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez called the lines outside the Forum, “the perfect distillation of an unconscionable societal failure.”

The huge turnout for the free clinic attracted significant media coverage in both the network television news and the major daily newspapers. But neither of the two sides in the official “healthcare debate” has made any reference to it.

For the Republican Party, the vast dimensions of the social crisis in America are an inconvenient distraction from its ongoing efforts to mobilize ultra-right and fascist-minded elements against the Obama administration. Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Fox News & Co. prefer fanning hysteria over “death panels” and other such mirages to confronting the reality that tens of millions of working people lack access to needed healthcare because they have no insurance or no money.

For Obama and the Democrats, however, the Forum event is equally unwelcome. The president addressed town hall meetings on healthcare Friday night and Saturday night in Montana and Colorado. At neither of the forums, heavily publicized and televised live on cable, did he make any reference to the extraordinary and moving spectacle in Los Angeles. On Sunday, an op-ed column on healthcare appeared in the New York Times under Obama’s byline, also without any mention of the Forum free clinic.

This deliberate silence is proof enough that Obama’s healthcare program has nothing to do with “reform,” in the sense of any genuine effort to make an improvement, even of a minimal character, in the availability of healthcare to working people.

More than four decades ago, both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson visited impoverished areas of Appalachia as part of efforts to win support for the anti-poverty measures enacted during the 1960s. If Obama were advocating even a limited social reform, he would have seized on the Los Angeles event as a demonstration of the acute social need.

But the goal of Obama’s pro-corporate healthcare restructuring is to increase the financial health of American capitalism, not to improve the physical health of the American people. Hence his overriding emphasis on the need to cut healthcare spending, in order to reduce labor costs and improve the competitive position of corporate America.

That is why the Obama healthcare program is supported by major sections of big business, including the bulk of those corporations—drug manufacturers, health insurance companies, and giant hospital chains—whose profit drive is fundamentally responsible for the healthcare crisis.

The Obama plan has been drawn up in close consultation with these corporate interests, who have been given explicit assurances that their profits will not be threatened. It is the patients, i.e., the entire American population, who will bear the cost, through the establishment of a two-class healthcare system—first-class care for those who can afford it, and cut-rate care for the vast majority.

As opposed to the fake alternatives presented by the Obama administration—either his reactionary healthcare program or the status quo—the working class must demand an end to medicine-for-profit, and the establishment of free healthcare for all, as a basic human right, to be provided at public expense.

The resources for healthcare should be obtained as part of the socialist reorganization of all of economic life. This means the nationalization of the giant corporations and banks, the confiscation of the wealth of Wall Street and the super-rich, and the transformation of the healthcare industry into a public utility dedicated to serving human needs and democratically owned and controlled by the working people.

Patrick Martin

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FROM JUDICIAL WATCH.org

Mexico Promotes Free U.S. Healthcare For Illegal Immigrants

 

Time to wake up people! With unemployment at 12% and the state going broke, our tax dollars are going to pay for healthcare for hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens. To the tune of over a billion dollars a year!


Mexico's government operates programs in about a dozen American cities that refers its nationals--living in the U.S. illegally--to publicly funded health centers where they can get free medical care without being turned over to immigration authorities.

The program is called Ventanillas de Salud (Health Windows) in Spanish and its mission is to help illegal immigrants find U.S. hospitals, clinics and other government programs where they can get free services without being deported for violating federal immigration laws.

Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, San Diego and Indiana are among the cities where Mexican consulates operate the health referral system which annually costs U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars. In Los Angeles County alone, illegal immigrants cost taxpayers nearly $440 million in health services annually and a whopping $1.1 billion statewide.

The Mexican consul in Los Angeles proudly announced that nearly 300,000 Mexicans in the area have benefited from his government's health referral program, which he says actually saves the county money by encouraging immigrants to seek preventive care rather than waiting for more expensive emergency treatment.

The Southern California operation promises to assess "consulate clients" for eligibility to government-funded health insurance and other primary care services and offers free legal assistance to those who are denied coverage. Its goal is to improve access to health services for immigrants of Mexican origin by formalizing a health education, medical home referral and insurance enrollment program.

In Chicago, the Mexican consul's Spanish-language web site heavily promotes the Illinois Department of Health's low-cost prescription medicine program for illegal aliens and various free medical services throughout the state. It encourages all Mexicans in the area to pursue the valuable U.S. government-financed services for their entire family.

The Indiana-based program boasts that it serves thousands of "Mexican nationals" living in that state as well as Ohio, Kentucky and southern Illinois. Mexican officials claim that its highly successful pro-health program sends out a clear message to other Mexican consulates throughout the country and the world.

Although these programs facilitate people to remain in the country illegally, Mexico is working hard to expand them to all 47 U.S. consulates to better serve its nationals. In the meantime, U.S. taxpayers will keep picking up the exorbitant tab of medically treating the millions who live in the country illegally.

www.judicialwatchwatch.org

 

 

 

 

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Illegals’ medical bills top $35.7M
Taxpayers hit hard for trips to ER


By Jessica Van Sack  |   Wednesday, October 27, 2010  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Politics

Beleaguered Bay State and U.S. taxpayers coughed up a staggering $35.7 million this year in free emergency health care for more than 52,000 illegal aliens in Massachusetts, sparking outrage from candidates and critics who back a tougher line on immigration.

The figures — released by Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration under an order for the Secretary of State’s office and after more than a month of ducking questions — show illegal immigrants who belong to MassHealth Limited received $33.8 million in taxpayer-funded in-patient hospital care this year.

They also made 6,160 visits to the state’s overburdened emergency rooms in the fiscal year ending in June for an additional cost of $1.9 million, a Herald analysis shows.


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MEXICANOCCUPATION.blogspot.com

 

latimes.com

Opinion

California must stem the flow of illegal immigrants

The state should go after employers who hire them, curb taxpayer-funded benefits, deploy the National Guard to help the feds at the border and penalize 'sanctuary' cities.


Illegal immigration is another matter entirely. With the state budget in tatters, millions of residents out of work and a state prison system strained by massive overcrowding, California simply cannot continue to ignore the strain that illegal immigration puts on our budget and economy. Illegal aliens cost taxpayers in our state billions of dollars each year. As economist Philip J. Romero concluded in a 2007 study, "illegal immigrants impose a 'tax' on legal California residents in the tens of billions of dollars."


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“Through love of having children, we are going to take over.”  AUGUSTIN CEBADA, BROWN BERETS, THE LA RAZA FASCIST PARTY




Illegal Aliens Cause Massive Cuts For US Seniors (THESE ARE DATED FIGURES. CALIFORNIA ALONE PUTS OUT NEARLY $20 BILLION. LOS ANGELES COUNTY ALONE PAYS OUT $600 MILLION IN WELFARE FOR ILLEGALS, WHILE IT’S SCHOOLS ARE IN MELTDOWN AND MEXICAN GANGS FLOURISH!)

1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year in California alone!

Welfare for illegals in “sanctuary city” Los Angeles County is $600 million per year (source: JudicalWatch.org).

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 2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.

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 3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.

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 4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!

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5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies. 1 in 5 births in Los Angeles are by Mexicans that crossed our borders for “free” birthing and then 18 years of welfare. 1 in 10 the rest of the country!

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 6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens. In California alone ONE BILLION IS SPENT BY STATE PRISONS to maintain illegals, many of whom are still operating their gang and drug operations. In sanctuary city Los Angeles, approximately $300 million per year is spent on jails to incarcerate illegals

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7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.

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 8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare and Social Services by the American taxpayers.

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 9. $300-$400 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.

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10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two-and-a-half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US. In sanctuary County of Los Angeles, there are 500 – 1,000 murders by Mexican illegals. They cost the county nearly one million dollars each to prosecute. Over 90% of all warrants for homicide is for a Mexican illegal! Of Los Angeles’ TOP 200 MOST WANTED CRIMINALS, 176 ARE MEXICANS! There have been 2,000 Californians murdered by illegals that fled back to Mexico to avoid prosecution. The rate for re-arrests of illegals is staggering.

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11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border.

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12. The National Policy Institute, estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.

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13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin. Banks such as La Raza donors Wells Fargo and Bank of America, both illegal open bank accounts for illegals, and handed millions in mortgages to illegals with stolen I.D.

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14. 'The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States Total cost is a whoopin'... $338.3




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VISIT THIS SITE FOR INFO ON OUR NATION’S IDENTITY AS WE BECOME ANNEXED BY MEXICO

THE BRADLEY REPORT ON AMERICAN’S NATIONAL IDENTITY

BRADLEYPORJECT.org

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"Remember 187 -- the Proposition to deny taxpayer funds for services to
non-citizens -- was the last gasp of white America in California."
---Art Torres, Chairman of the California Democratic Party

Anchor Baby Power

La Voz de Aztlan has produced a video in honor of the millions of babies that have been born as US citizens to Mexican undocumented parents. These babies are destined to transform America. The nativist CNN reporter Lou Dobbs estimates that there are over 200,000 "Anchor Babies" born every year whereas George Putnam, a radio reporter, says the figure is closer to 300,000. La Voz de Aztlan believes that the number is approximately 500,000 "Anchor Babies" born every year.

The video below depicts the many faces of the "Anchor Baby Generation". The video includes a fascinating segment showing a group of elementary school children in Santa Ana, California confronting the Minutemen vigilantes. The video ends with a now famous statement by Professor Jose Angel Gutierrez of the University of Texas at Austin.


THESE FIGURES ON WELFARE FOR ILLEGALS IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY ARE DATED. IT NOT EXCEEDS $600 MILLION PER YEAR!!! (source: Los Angeles County & JUDICIAL WATCH)

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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1949085/posts

 

 

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LOS ANGELES – A MEXICAN WELFARE AND CRIME STATE WHERE THE JOBS ALSO GO TO ILLEGALS

 


 

 

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EXPORTING POVERTY... we take MEXICO'S 38 million poor, illiterate, criminal and frequently pregnant

The Mexican Invasion................................................

Mexico prefers to export its poor, not uplift them

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0330/p09s02-coop.html

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Where To Go When Your Local Emergency Room Goes Bankrupt?"

                                           
During the past ten years  84 California hospitals have declared bankruptcy and closed down their Emergency Rooms forever.  Financially crippled by legistlative and judicial mandates to treat illegal aliens have bankrupted hospitals!   In 2010, in Los Angeles County alone, over 2 million illegal aliens recorded visits to county emergency rooms for both routine and emergency care.  Per official figures, the cost is $1,000 dollars for every taxpayer in Los Angeles County.   


 

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Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform
www.CAIRCO.org



 

 

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HE LIED, SHE LIED – LA RAZA DEMS PELOSI AND OBAMA HAND IT TO THEIR LA RAZA PARTY BASE:

 

 

For some, a struggle WHO THINKS ABOUT THE STRUGGLE OF THE AMERICANS?



Some illegal immigrants have used stolen Social Security numbers to qualify for health programs -- a form of medical identity theft increasingly on hospital radars. Many more scramble to pay for their medicine and doctors visits in cash, a challenge in an economy where day-laborer work has dried up.



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Illegals Receiving Health Care …."But....( of course there is!)"


 

 “If you’re in this country illegally, should you be able to get health care?” CNN’s John King asked Mrs. Pelosi.


“No, illegal immigrants are not covered by this plan,” she replied.


Mrs. Pelosi’s remarks are downright deceptive, according to Congressman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who points out that the proposed health care legislation “ contains gaping loopholes that will allow illegal immigrants to receive taxpayer-funded benefits .”


These loopholes, Rep. Smith maintains, are “no accident.” He maintains that the proposed legislation, despite months of debate, still contains no mechanism for verifying if applicants are legal residents or not.


The Republican members of the Ways and Means Committee attempted to address this loophole by an amendment proposed by Congressman Dick Heller (R-Nevada) which would have required applicants for government provided or subsidized health care to demonstrate eligibility through the Income and Eligibility Verification System (IEVS) and the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) systems.

But, on July 29, the Heller Amendment was soundly defeated by the following 26 Majority Members of the House Ways & Means Committee: Xavier Becerra (Calif.), Shelley Berkley (Nev.), Earl Blumenauer (Ore.), Joe Crowley (N.Y.), Artur Davis (Ala.), Danny Davis (Ill.), Lloyd Doggett (Texas), Bob Etheridge (N.C.), Brian Higgins (N.Y.), Ron Kind (Wis.), John Larson (Conn.), Sander Levin (Mich.), John Lewis (Ga.), Jim McDermott (Wash.), Kendrick Meek (Fla.), Richard Neal (Mass.), Bill Pascrell (N.J.), Earl Pomeroy (N.D.), Chairman Charlie Rangel (N.Y.), Linda Sanchez (Calif.), Allyson Schwartz (Pa.), Pete Stark (Calif.), John Tanner (Tenn.), Mike Thompson (Calif.), Chris Van Hollen (Md.), and John Yarmuth (Ky.).


The Federal for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) believes the legislation is now purposefully self-contradictory in order to ensure that the millions of illegal Latinos will receive coverage. FAIR points out that while one provision of the proposed health care reform bill states illegal immigrants will not be eligible for benefits, the legislation remains without any system of verification for determining if a patient is a legal or illegal U. S. resident.

Moreover, Fair insists, the bill 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.

“At a time when the federal government is running trillion dollar deficits, and the projected costs of the proposed health care overhaul seem to grow with each passing day, the committee that writes our tax laws wants Americans to pay for the health care costs of illegal aliens,” says FAIR President Dan Stein. “Given the opportunity to close loopholes that would cost the public billions of dollars each year, Democrats on the committee unanimously rejected an amendment that would bar illegal aliens from a national health care program.”

The cost of treating illegal aliens amounts to nearly $11 billion a year, according to calculations done by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a non-profit group that opposes illegal immigration. And that cost is not expected to go away if a health insurance reform bill becomes law.

According to FAIR’s Director of Special Projects Jack Martin, illegal immigrants presently cost U. S. taxpayers $10.7 billion a year for health care. The numbers are contained in a report that FAIR plans to publish in the near future.

“The current health care bill is looking as if it is leaving a very large loophole for medical coverage being provided to illegal aliens,” Martin said.

So again, yes, the speaker of the House can say: "We've made no provision for Health Care for Illegal Aliens". But, is she in fact telling you the WHOLE truth or only half a truth. I am an independent voter and I, at this point, have my opinion. You be the judge for your own opinion.

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The politics of Healthcare Reform

from the AP -

"Immigration analyst James R. Edwards Jr. reported last week in National Review that "no health legislation on the table requires federal, state or local agencies -- or private institutions receiving federal funds -- to check the immigration status of health-program applicants, so some of the money distributed via Medicaid and tax credits inevitably would go to illegal aliens." Moreover, the Senate Finance Committee plan creates a preference for illegal aliens by exempting them from the mandate to buy insurance.

That's right. Lawabiding, uninsured Americans would be fined if they didn't submit to the ObamaCare prescription.

Lawbreaking bordercrossers and deportation fugitives would be spared.

For years, advocates of uncontrolled immigration have argued that illegals aren't getting free health care, and that even if they were, they'd not be draining government budgets. The fiscal crisis in California gives lie to those talking points. In March, the Associated Press reported that Sacramento and Contra Costa counties were slashing staff and closing clinics due to the prohibitive costs of providing nonemergency health services for illegals.

"The general situation there is being faced by nearly every health department across the country, and if not right now, shortly," Robert M. Pestronk of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, told the AP."

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Congressman Brian Bilbray, along with 55 other Members of Congress, is urging the leaders of the United States House of Representatives to include a method of enforcement for benefits under any new plan of nationalized health care. The text of the letter follows:

September 15, 2009

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the House
H-232 United States Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable John Boehner
Office of the House Republican Leader
H-204 United States Capitol
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Madam Speaker and Republican Leader Boehner:

As discussion on health care reform continues, we urge you to include measures that will prevent illegal immigrants from receiving taxpayer-funded benefits in any health care reform bill considered by the House. While the House bill currently says illegal immigrants cannot get benefits, the statement is meaningless because the bill contains no verification mechanism to ensure that illegal immigrants will not receive benefits.

The non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) recently issued some troubling information on the immigration-related provisions of the current health care bill, H.R. 3200. Specifically, the new CRS Report R40773, Treatment of Noncitizens in H.R. 3200, points out the following:

  • CRS states that H.R. 3200 "does not contain any restrictions on noncitzens—whether legally or illegally present, or in the United States temporarily or permanently—participating in the [taxpayer-subsidized Health Insurance] Exchange."
  • While section 142(a)(3) of H.R. 3200 states the responsibility of the Health Choices Commissioner to administer the "individual affordability credits under subtitle C of title II, including determination of eligibility for such credits," no specific enforcement mechanism is outlined in the bill.
  • CRS also notes that "there could be instances where some family members would meet the definition of an eligible individual for purposes of the credit, while other family members would not. For example, in a family consisting of a U.S. citizen married to an unauthorized alien and a U.S. citizen child, the U.S. citizen spouse and child could meet the criteria for being a credit-eligible individual, while the unauthorized alien spouse would not meet the criteria. H.R. 3200 does not expressly address how such a situation would be treated. Therefore, it appears that the Health Choices Commissioner would be responsible for determining how the credits would be administered in the case of mixed-status families."

Our constituents find these provisions unacceptable. The Pew Hispanic Center estimated that there are almost two million families in the United States where illegal immigrant parents have U.S.-born children, and even more mixed-status families exist. If H.R. 3200 becomes law in its current form, billions in taxpayer funds could go to those who are in our country illegally.

Most of our concerns could be easily addressed by requiring individuals applying for affordability credits to undergo citizenship verification using one of the existing programs used for various social service programs. We urge you to adopt language such as the Heller amendment (offered in the House Ways & Means Committee during the markup of H.R. 3200, July 16, 2009) or the Deal amendment (offered in the House Energy & Commerce Committee markup of H.R. 3200, July 31, 2009) in the final version of any health care reform legislation to close these costly, unnecessarily loopholes.

Sincerely,

 

 

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