Health Care Legislation Filled with Loopholes to Benefit Illegal Aliens
As the long legislative process aimed at overhauling America’s health care system has unfolded, one of the few things that is clear is how much the nation’s failed immigration policies have contributed to the growth of the medically uninsured. The health care debate also offers a preview of the intense political pressure to bestow expensive public benefits on immigrants that would inevitably result should Congress enact amnesty for illegal aliens and increase the flow of government sanctioned immigration.
Immigrants — legal and illegal — compose about one-eighth of the U.S. population, but account for about one-third of the medically uninsured. Indirectly, many native-born workers have lost employer-provided health insurance because of the depression of wages and benefits resulting from large numbers of illegal aliens in the labor force.
The health care debate also demonstrates how tenaciously the immigration lobby will fight for public subsidies of both legal and illegal immigrants. FAIR’s analysis of H.R. 3962, the America’s Affordable Health Care Act of 2009, approved by the House of Representatives in early November, reveals a loophole designed to allow illegal aliens to benefit, and it eliminates an important provision of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 that limits public benefits to legal immigrants during their first five years in the country. Attempts to close the loophole and prevent illegal aliens from gaining access to taxpayer-subsidized health insurance, and to maintain the five-year waiting period for legal immigrants were both defeated.
Elimination of the five-year waiting period for legal immigrants. Under Section 342(d) of H.R. 3962, legal immigrants would be immediately eligible for taxpayer “affordability credits” to pay for health insurance. This provision reverses a 1996 effort to ensure that American taxpayers are not burdened by newly arriving immigrants. According to FAIR’s analysis, the elimination of the waiting period will likely cost taxpayers $4.9 billion in 2014 (when the affordability credits begin), rising to $6.4 billion by 2019. The total cost to taxpayers over that period is estimated to be $34 billion.
Preliminary analysis by FAIR of the Senate’s health care legislation reveals similar deficiencies in the eligibility verification process and the elimination of the five-year waiting period. The target for final action on the Senate bill is before Christmas, and FAIR will provide a more detailed analysis in the next issue of the FAIR Immigration Report.
