The immigration issue could still muck up Obamacare. And the liberal Congressional Hispanic Caucus might end up supporting bars to illegal aliens from federal health care.
This issue’s fallen relatively silent – compared with attention to the Senate health bill’s loose language on abortion — since Rep. Joe Wilson pointed out illegal alien loopholes in the House Obamacare bill.
Make no mistake: Taxpayers would still get hit big-time for illegal aliens’ health care under the Senate bill — only not quite as badly as under the House-passed health-care bill. Both bills significantly expand the Medicaid entitlement program, which already is breaking the bank for the states. Both make it easy to enroll illegal aliens under “presumptive eligibility” rules.
According to The Hill, CHC members are divided over whether to support the Senate bill for its immigrant provisions. “Hispanic Democrats say they haven’t moved from their stance that they will not vote for a healthcare bill containing the Senate’s prohibitions,” The Hill reported. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been negotiating this with CHC members behind closed doors.
Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D., Ill.) said he will oppose the health bill on account of the Senate’s immigration-related language, and other CHC members are likely to join him. However, several will support Obamacare regardless.
Latino members who vote for the Senate health bill effectively go on record in favor of eligibility verification. They help further provisions barring illegal aliens from certain government health benefits. And they practically guarantee that some illegal aliens will forego insurance coverage.
The Hispanic Caucus faces a tough situation. If they support Obamacare for its overall goals, they go against some of the Latinos they purport to represent. They must trust the Senate to change its own health legislation (reportedly an unlikely outcome). Or they must place blind faith in the prospect of subsequent amnesty legislation.
Which is what White House senior advisor David Axelrod seemed to be asking of the CHC when he appeared on CNN’s State of the Union: “We have to resolve the larger question, which is the status of undocumented workers in this country, and that’s another complicated issue. But we can’t resolve it within the context of this [health-care] debate.”
So how does the Senate bill differ from the House-passed bill concerning immigration?
The Senate bill requires states to set up “exchanges” where health insurance and premium subsidies would be available. Exchanges would include public health insurance, but a state could opt out of the public option.
The Senate legislation states that only “lawful residents” may have access to exchanges, taxpayer subsidies, and the government-run insurance option. It has tougher requirements than the House’s bill for verifying one’s health-coverage eligibility, based on citizenship and immigration status. But the Senate bill isn’t terribly good on this.
The Senate duplicates an existing, reliable electronic verification system. The SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) system is already used in more than 70 means-tested programs. The duplicate verification system will be much less robust, much less reliable, and is designed to be dumbed down over time.
The CHC landed a sweetheart deal for illegal immigrants back in the House debate. The House bill contains a sham ban on illegal immigrants receiving its taxpayer premium subsidy. The “affordability credits” would subsidize earners between 150 percent and 400 percent of the official poverty level for health-premium payment.
The House ban is meaningless because the bill lacks teeth for screening out illegal aliens. And the House bill doesn’t block them from the public option or the exchange.
These were concessions on the House side to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, made in order to secure CHC members’ support last fall. Members of the CHC recently met with President Obama, and they told him they oppose the relatively stricter Senate immigration provisions.
The question arises: Can Congressional Hispanic Caucus members rationalize voting for a health bill that’s tougher on illegal immigrants? If they’re hoping to see amnesty legislation, they should remember that the president already has a crowded policy agenda packed with controversies, and it’s still a highly partisan environment.
– James R. Edwards Jr. is a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies.