Reason No. 1,234 to stop health care “reform”
As if you needed another reason to oppose Sen. Harry Reid, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and President Barack Obama's plan to "reform" health care in America, here's another anyway.
Both bills -- Pelosi's and Reid's -- give illegal immigrants health care coverage from their employers.
How can that be? Didn't the president say that would never, ever happen.
Well, read it and weep. Hope for change.
Postscript: This e-mail came in from Jon Summers from Sen. Reid's office. He says the Washington Times story (and therefore my blog item) posted above is all wrong. The Times story says:
"Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants could receive health care coverage from their employers under the bills winding their way through Congress, despite President Obama's explicit pledge that illegal immigrants would not benefit.
"The House bill mandates, and the Senate bill strongly encourages, businesses to extend health care coverage to all employees. But the bills do not have exemptions to screen out illegal immigrants, who usually obtain jobs by using false identities and are indistinguishable from legal workers. "
I'm not sure Jon's e-mail responds to that directly. But to be fair, I thought you should see it for yourself. As always, you be the judge.
Hi Sherm,
Regarding your blog post on illegal immigrants being covered in the health care reform bill, you are absolutely wrong. If you wanted to be a responsible newsman and actually read the bill, Sec 1411 details how illegal immigrants are barred from the exchange.
Here’s the first part of that section:
“whether an individual who is to be covered in the individual market by a qualified health plan offered through an Exchange, or who is claiming a premium tax credit or reduced cost-sharing, meets the requirements of sections 1312(f)(3), 1402(e), and 1412(d) of this title and section 36B(e) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 that the individual be a citizen or national of the United States or an alien lawfully present in the United States”
Here’s a summary from Kaiser:
“Access to Exchanges will be limited to U.S. citizens and legal immigrants. Individuals who are incarcerated are excluded.”
http://www.kff.org/healthreform/upload/8023-S.pdf
I hope this is helpful. Please don’t be afraid to ask anytime you have a question. Like your other readers, I would prefer to see you writing based on fact, rather that the latest GOP-driven rumor.
--Jon
