Illegal Immigrants and U.S. National Health Care

One of the rumors making the rounds regarding the US National Health Care Reform discussion is that illegal immigrants would be covered by the overhaul. This is an ungrounded belief as far as litigation is concerned.

House health care bill, H.R. 3200: Sec 246 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 counterargument to this is basically that there is no enforcement to the rule. To this a spokesperson for the American Immigration Lawyers Association argued, "Making a fraudulent claim to an entitlement program when you're not actually entitled to it would have serious consequences for any person, but especially if it's considered a false claim to citizenship, that would have serious immigration consequences that could ultimately lead to deportation."

So there we go. In essence, illegal immigrants are not being supported by the USNHC reform discussion.

While we're at it, let's take this further. The basis of the argument that illegal immigrants will be covered by the USNHC reform is essentially that doing so will create a burden upon the cost of said reform. Is this true? As it stands, illegal immigrants already have the capacity to own private health insurance. It is believed that about half of illegal immigrants already do possess private health insurance. According to the present health care bill, they would be denied nationalized health care. If the rhetoric about USNHC diminishing the role of private health insurance holds true, then does it not follow that illegal immigrants would in fact be covered by insurance even less as a result of USNHC existing? An alternative interpretation of the bill even finds that illegal immigrants would be ineligible for nationalized health coverage, but may be fined if they do not own privatized health insurance!

If there is some confusion, it's already a fact that illegal immigrants are covered by government programs for certain medical issues, most of which involve emergencies. These policies have been in place for years now. The USNHC reform, as it stands, indicates it will do nothing deliberately to increase the opportunities for illegal immigrants to receive government-funded health care.

On the subject of enforcement, this is an issue outside of the support of USNHC reform. No one involved is supporting illegal immigrants being covered by nationalized health coverage. If they manage to acquire the coverage, this is not a new issue and is not exclusive to USNHC.

The instigation that illegal immigrants will be covered by the USNHC reform seems to be fear-mongering. When a person opposes something, they will attempt to find anything that could be wrong about it and assume it must be true without ever acquiring solid evidence. The idea that our government wants to support illegal immigrants with health coverage isn't even a new form of fear-mongering.

Citations:
Obama's Health Care Speech review by Brooks Jackson, Lori Robertson, Dangelo Gore, and Jess Hang on FactCheck.org (September 10, 2009)
Immigrants and Insurance by Jess Heng on FactCheck.org (September 11, 2009)
Social Security for Illegal Immigrants? by Justin Bank on FactCheck.org (March 1, 2009)