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White House citizenship view bends to Heller’s
Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2009 | 2 a.m.
Rep. Dean Heller
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Republican Rep. Dean Heller’s 15 minutes of fame has just been extended.
Heller became a darling of the conservative blogosphere after attempting, and failing, to pass an amendment to the House health care bill that would require a citizenship verification system to deny illegal immigrants access to government-funded care.
The amendment was shot down in the House Ways and Means Committee because, Heller’s opponents say, the bill already bans undocumented immigrants from accessing the subsidies that would be offered to lower-income households to buy health insurance on a new exchange. The bill also requires that a citizenship verification system be established, with the details left to federal health officials over the next several years as the new insurance exchange comes online.
Now it turns out the White House is insisting a citizenship verification system be in place from the outset.
The White House appears less motivated by Heller’s work on the issue than by that of his fellow Republican Rep. Joe Wilson, who shouted “You Lie!” after President Barack Obama said in his speech last week to Congress that undocumented residents wouldn’t receive government health assistance.
The administration seems eager to ease any doubts that Obama would grant benefits for illegal immigrants.
The bill proposed by House Democrats would allow illegal immigrants to use their own money to buy public or private insurance on the exchange — much the way undocumented residents can now dig into their own pockets and purchase private insurance.
Still, Heller and his supporters believe illegal immigrants would slip onto the system and access government subsidies with fraudulent identities and wanted to spell out the ban more fully.
As Heller was gaining attention for his proposal, progressives were incensed that Republicans were hijacking the health care debate over what many saw as a non-issue. Newsweek magazine highlighted Heller’s amendment as one of “The Five Biggest Lies in the Health Care Debate” in its Sept. 7 issue.
Late last week, the White House issued talking points that said undocumented immigrants would not be able to buy insurance on the exchange — prohibiting immigrants not just from accessing the public option but also from using their own money to buy private insurance on the exchange, too.
(The White House said undocumented immigrants can continue buying private insurance in the private market.)
Second, the White House insisted citizenship verification would be required to buy insurance on the exchange — and mentions the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, program Heller had recommended in his amendment.
The White House downplayed the daylight between the president and House Democrats on the immigration issue, saying Monday that the president has been consistent in his statements that undocumented immigrants would not be covered under his plan.
But White House press secretary Robert Gibbs hinted at the shift last week when he explained why the president revised down the number of uninsured from the oft-cited 46 million to more than 30 million during the congressional address. The change, Gibbs said, was to clarify his position that undocumented immigrants would not receive benefits.
The difference between the two numbers he said would be roughly the number of undocumented. (Other estimates have said the number of undocumented immigrants without insurance is much lower, about 5 million.)
Sonal Ambegaokar, a health policy attorney at the National Immigration Law Center, called the White House position “just a reaction to the anti-immigration forces.”
“It’s not a well-thought public health policy discussion,” she said. “It’s about how do you silence the opposition. They think verification is going to do it. I doubt you’re going to win support from people who don’t want health care reform.”
Jennifer Ng’andu, deputy director of health policy at the National Council of La Raza, said immigration advocacy groups want a verification system in place and may even back the SAVE system recommended by Heller and mentioned by the White House.
But those details will be resolved over the next several years as the exchange is being formulated. The 20-year-old SAVE system is used primarily for Medicaid and the new exchange will operate differently, perhaps making other systems a better fit.
“We feel they’ve really caved to agitators who were telling baldfaced lies,” she said.
Under existing law, undocumented immigrants are able to access government-run health care, namely Medicaid, only on an emergency basis.
Further, a 1986 law signed by President Ronald Reagan requires that hospital emergency rooms accept any patient, regardless of insurance status — whether a legal resident or not.
An effort to clamp down on illegal immigrants who are gaming the system in 2005 proved less fruitful than predicted. Congress at the time passed a tough new citizenship documentation requirement, mandating the Medicaid recipients show proof of citizenship — a birth certificate, passport or such. Hopes were high that as much as $90 million could be saved by cutting more than 50,000 illegal immigrants from the rolls.
However, a General Accountability Office report found that nearly half the states were indeed losing Medicaid patients — but mainly because the new verification system was snaring citizens who would otherwise qualify for care. In one state, care for 18,000 Medicaid patients who met citizenship requirements was delayed or denied, the report said.
Medicaid serves low-income people, and they are often the least likely to have a driver’s license, passport or copy of their birth certificate, experts say.
Health experts suggest that caring for immigrants in the ERs is more costly than providing routine care that can keep them out of the emergency room.
Heller, meanwhile, seems to be enjoying the resurgence, even as he continues to oppose the health care reform plan before Congress. “I am pleased the administration has taken a serious look at the flaws in the current health care proposal,” Heller said in a statement Saturday evening.
But that is unlikely to win the White House his vote.
“I do not support a government-run plan,” Heller said.
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The Republicans are looking for anything, ANYTHING, on healthcare they can bite and chew off and down that will sell to their hard right consituents. They want votes in 2010, thus perpetually running for office, no matter the harder road of making the big choices for the the future of the country.
While this issue has become so important to them NOW, for years, for DECADES, illegal immigrants have gone into publicly-funded provider properties and received healthcare and delivered babies without having to pay.
Gee, where have the Republicans in Congress been?
They preach fiscal conservatism about federal spending for eight years, while starting two wars and cutting taxes for the top income earners. Republicans don't mind dumping costs such as healthcare for illegals to state and local entities, that's what it boils down to. The costs are still there, even higher, they just don't want those costs coming across their desk in Washington. They can't perpetually campaign on costs that come across their desk.
There's a big difference between "mandated emergency" care and complete health care.
Section 246 of the bill prohibits "undocumented aliens" from receiving health care, but does not prescribe a method for preventing illegal aliens from receiving health care. This provision, designed to con the American people into believing illegal aliens will not receive taxpayer-funded health care, is nothing more than a fig leaf to give the Democratic Party political cover. We both know that if the bill does not prescribe methods for verifying the legal status of an individual seeking taxpayer-funded health care illegal aliens will have no problems accessing this health care.
Because of the lack of immigration verification requirements in the House health care bill, an estimated 6.6 million illegal aliens could be covered because they meet the financial criteria. Those 6.6 million currently cost the public $4.3 billion in emergency rooms and free health clinics but would cost $31 billion under the House health care system.
We need more people like Heller in Congress!
HELP STOP ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.......MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD:
http://www.numbersusa.com/content/learn/...
"Under existing law, undocumented immigrants are able to access government-run health care, namely Medicaid, only on an emergency basis."
There are a lot of illegals on Medicaid.
Why? Because there is no enforcement mechanism.
It is not work two cents to say something like, "The speed limit will be 70" and then have nothing to check and enforce that people are driving 70.
That was one of the core points with Joe.
I am glad that White House and the Senate are with Joe.
Titus and the House are OK with illegals getting Medicaid and would have been OK with illegals getting credits to buy health insurance.
Many Republicans like illegals because they will work cheaply and won't demand benefits like health care, vacation days, etc. They keep the cost of labor low for big business. Why else would Walmart have been caught using them to clean their floors? This big supply of cheap illegal labor also keeps citizens from being able to get better pay & benefits. All of that benefits big business, and anyone who likes buying cheap crap from Walmart. Also, how many well off Republicans use illegals for lawn care, child care, etc?? We need REAL immigration control so we can solve health care, education, crime, etc.
I think you are right about business owners loving the cheap labor that illegals provide.
But the Democrats scream left and right about offshore cheap labor for it drives down wages here but they just love that cheap labor when it crosses the border. Why? .....Power.
"Because there is no enforcement mechanism."
Actually, there is. It's just overwhelmingly expensive and causes more legal residents than illegal immigrants.
A Government Accountability Office audit of six state Medicaid programs in 2007 showed that for every $100 spent to implement a rule demanding proof of citizenship, just 14 cents was saved.
And the number of illegals caught? Eight.
I don't care if the enforcement program isn't cost effective. That's not the point.
The point is to keep illegals from gaming the system and give them reasons to get the hell out of here. If only eight illegals were caught in the Medicaid program, it's because the rest of them knew there was no sense in trying to beat a system with an enforcement regimen in place.
But again, it's not a monetary issue. It's about right and wrong, and those who want illegals be able to access the government teat are on the wrong side of the issue. No matter how hard the Dems try to make it about compassion and the Republicans "hating their fellow man," they are on the wrong side.
"But again, it's not a monetary issue."
I forgot to mention the tens of thousands of legal, United States citizens who were thrown OFF Medicaid rolls as a result of this rule.
So we caught 8 illegals, and 20,000 Oklahoma residents who could prove citizenship but not suifficiently to satisfy the rules were tossed off the rolls.
Yeah, that's fair.
Heller was dead-on. The Democrats got caught and called on the issue. The Democrats are pushing government intrusion in our lives. Government run anything is a bad idea. I do not trust the Democrats, sooner or later illegals would make it in the system.
So Douglas... 20000 Oklahoma residents who could prove citizenship but not sufficiently to satisfy the rules were tossed off the rolls?
Not exactly... 8 were caught with fraudulent documents. The rest could/did not prove citizenship by producing a U.S. birth certificate, a U.S. passport or other means of establishing citizenship. I wonder why...
"The rest could/did not prove citizenship by producing a U.S. birth certificate, a U.S. passport or other means of establishing citizenship. I wonder why..."
Not everyone has a certified copy of their birth certificate (the only kind that will be accepted). Not everyone has a U.S. Passport (and you'd need the birth certificate to get the passport). But they did have other documents that proved citizenship - just not sufficiently to meet the rule.
There was one specific case of a 39-year-old Native American who, despite being able to trace her ancestry back nearly a century, could not produce the proper documents on demand.
You might be supprised that even today in areas of large Native American populations (Oklahoma and Alaska) that people are born without birth certificates and only an entry in a tribal register or family bible. Funny that the most "American by birth" of all can't "prove" it.
You should have put the key information up front: this whole "illegal" issue is a red-herring. The important part is: "the new verification system was snaring citizens who would otherwise qualify for care. In one state, care for 18,000 Medicaid patients who met citizenship requirements was delayed or denied."
What kind of administration is so easily cowed that it will embrace a policy which harms citizens, legal residents, and tax-payers, only to ensure that we keep our undocumented brothers and sisters sick.
This decision by the White House is, quite literally, sickening.
I am not aware of any documentation to prove citizenship other than a birth certificate or a government form that a birth certificate was required to obtain said form such as a passport or Certificate of Naturalization. There are several forms that can be use to prove a person was born in the U.S.
If a person needs a birth certificate, all they need to do is contact the State in which they were born, give their name and date and place of birth and they can receive a copy of their birth certificate. A Native American can use their tribal register to obtain a certificate of birth.
You need a copy of your birth certificate to:
enroll in school
join the military
work for the U.S. Govt
obtain a passport
draw Social Security
obtain drivers license in most states
and many more...
The republicans and democrats do nothing about the real illegal immigration problem here in Las Vegas. The republicans and democrats have already had their chance, its time to vote third party.