Health Care: What about Illegal Aliens?

Although no one really knows for sure, most reasonable estimates believe there are well over 15 million people living in the United States illegally. One can only imagine that it would be quite expensive for tax-payers to insure these 15+ million people.

So what does the House-approved bill (H.R. 3962) plan to prevent illegal immigrants from gaining federal funds for health insurance? As we know, President Obama and other democrats have said on numerous occasions that their reform would not insure those who are in this country illegally. What, specifically, does H.R. 3962 do to prevent illegals from gaining health insurance? Nothing.

OK, let's be fair to Nancy Pelosi... Section 342 does specifically say that the affordability credits are for legal citizens and immigrants only. That's good news... right? Wrong.

Section 302 of the bill, when talking about eligibility for the exchange programs and the public option, the bill text clearly says "all individuals are eligible to obtain coverage" through the exchange programs and/or public option. So, the first thing that needs to be re-worded is Section 302. It should say something more along the lines of "all legal citizens are eligible to obtain coverage." That's a simple change, right? Would that be enough? Of course not. In a bill that's over 2,000 pages long, one simple change is never enough to "fix it."

Later on in the bill, when the public option is created (Title III, Subtitle B), it clearly states that all individuals eligible for the exchange are also eligible for the public option. If everyone is eligible for the exchange (like Sec. 302 says), then everybody is eligible for the public option.

Now, you're probably scratching your head, and wondering about this, because as many have said, "Illegals will not be covered, because Sec. 342 clearly outlaws affordability credits being given to illegal aliens." You're right, but if Congress passes a bill that says the minimum age to consume alcohol is 25, and leaves it at that, there's no enforcement or regulation. That's essentially what Sec. 342 of the House-approved bill does: it clearly outlaws covering illegal immigrants, but how does it enforce this law?

The verification process is essentially absent from this 2,000 page bill. 2,000 pages, and there's no clear way to verify a person is who they say they are. The most anyone has talked about for verification processes is matching a social security with a name. But, there are lots of loopholes to that method. What if the individual produces a SSN and matching name, but they are not that person? That will open the door to massive identity theft.

The bill also allows people to "correct their mistake," should they submit a SSN and name that do not match. They are first given the chance to check for a "misprint." The bill even goes as far to allow a change to the SSN database to match your records, should the database be in error! Even further, the bill will give you up to 4 months to "correct the discrepancy" with the Social Security Administration. During this whole process, the individual will be eligible for affordability credits.

Even further, if a person is caught using an invalid SSN/name combination, there's no punishment for them -- they are simply denied coverage, and turned away empty handed. That's it. Now, think about this for a second... If you're an illegal alien, and you make up a random name and SSN, you'll get up to 4 months of affordability credits that easily. During those 4 months, you'll have the chance to create a false entry (or change an existing entry) in the Social Security database. If, for whatever reason, that fails in the 4-month "free trial period," you'll be turned away, and sent home. Then, it's as easy to go back the following day with a newly created name and SSN, and (provided the guy doesn't recognize you), you start over again, and get another 4 months (at least) free.

Under the current language of the House-Approved H.R. 3962, there are major, major problems with potentially covering illegal aliens.

The final bill needs to do more than make it illegal to cover illegal aliens -- there has to actually be a way to enforce that.

So, what can you do? Same thing I always say... contact your Senators and Representative, identify yourself as one of their constituents, and as someone who will not vote for them if they don't support strengthening the bill's language against illegal aliens. If you don't know how to contact your Rep and Senators, go to http://opencongress.org for links to email them. It's that simple!