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Health Care Reform Bills Won't Verify Citizenship Status
Penny Starr, CNS News
The health care reform bills Congress is considering would not require people who sign up for government health care programs to verify their eligibility. That opens the door for millions of illegal aliens and other non-citizens to receive medical servicespaid for by taxpayers, a panel of experts from the conservative Center for Immigration Studies and The Heritage Foundation said Wednesday.
“This takes an unprecedented step in opening up the US welfare system to illegal immigrants,” Robert Rector, senior fellow on domestic policy at The Heritage Foundation, told an audience at the National Press Club in Washington .
“We have had a system of identity checks that largely prevents adult illegal immigrants from getting onto these means-tested welfare programs,” Rector added.
Title II, Subtitle C, Section 246 of the House health care bill (H.R. 3200) stipulates “no federal payment for undocumented aliens.” The Senate bill states that beneficiaries of federal health care programs must be a citizen or national or an alien lawfully admitted to the United States .
But neither bill has a provision for verifying citizenship status, according to these experts.
Rector said people signing up for government-run health care programs would not have to substantiate that they are in this country legally. “The health care reform legislation turns that on its back and tramples it into the dust,” Rector said. “It basically says, ‘We will not verify, we will not check, we have a complete open door for every illegal immigrant, current and in the future, to simply enroll and receive benefits under this program.'
“Essentially these bills expand government health care and taxpayer-funded subsidies for government controlled private insurance in the public option,” James R. Edwards Jr., a fellow at CIS, said at the event.
“They make it easy to enroll new people in government-run health programs with what amounts to built-in willful ignorance about characteristics which would be disqualifying, such as being here on a temporary VISA or being under one's sponsorship requirements, or being here illegally,” Edwards added.
Edwards said two amendments proposed in the House to require verification of citizenship and other qualifications were voted down and that Senate legislation also lacks any kind of verification provision.
August 23 - 09
Editor's Note: Enforcement vehicles for laws ...they are important pieces of the puzzle when dealing with less than honest politicians.
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