Are Illegal Immigrants Covered Under Obama's Proposed Health Care Reform?

In his speech to Congress on September 9^th, Obama refuted the claim that illegal immigrants will be provided health care under the proposed bill with a simple, "This, too, is false." There is no way to verify the validity of either Obama's claim or the claim that illegal immigrants will be covered under the new health care proposal without looking at the bill itself. This article does just that and cites text from the H.R. 3200 Health Care Proposal Bill to provide an objective look at the status of illegal immigrants in the proposed health care reform.

The first mention of the word "aliens" comes on page 143 of the bill in section 246 titled, "No Federal Payment for Undocumented Aliens." This section comes under Subtitle C, which defines the implications of affordability credits. These credits are used to subsidize cost-sharing of basic insurance plans for eligible families and individuals that apply for the program. The section is short and states, "Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States."

The second mention of "aliens" comes on page 170 of the bill under section 401, which amends section 59B of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 that is titled, "Tax on Individuals Without Acceptable Health Care Coverage." This amendment delineates the tax on persons who freely choose to deny health care coverage if the bill is passed. The tax is a 2.5% tax on the modified adjusted gross income of the individual and would go directly into the Health Exchange Trust Fund that pays for affordability credits of participating parties. The reference to "aliens" states that, "[The tax] shall not apply to any individual who is a nonresident alien."

The third mention of "aliens" comes on page 202 of the bill. This falls under the amendment of section 59B as the above paragraph discusses. The mention discusses the exception of nonresident aliens who are already being taxed. It references section 871(b) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, which basically discusses those nonresident alien individuals that are conducting trade or business within the United States and are being taxed on income from their business. Since illegal immigrants aren't being taxed, this doesn't apply to them.

There are no more mentions of "aliens," "illegal immigrants," "undocumented workers," or any other combination of words I could think of that describes untaxed individuals residing in the United States. It seems the first mention best summarizes the bills approach to illegal immigrants. I hope this information helps you make an informed decision on H.R. 3200 and the proposed health care reform that is under so much debate.