"Most illegals are without health insurance, and when these workers need emergency healthcare, the American taxpayer gets stuck with the bill." -Congressman Spencer Bachus, R.- AL

It is true that the House healthcare reform bill, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, does specifically deny federal subsidies for healthcare insurance to illegal immigrants. But some (republicans and libertarians) still argue that illegal immigrants will be able to obtain federal subsidies for health insurance coverage through loopholes they claim have purposely been left open in the bill.

Citing a CNN report which has been widely circulated on the web, the claim is that Representative Dean Heller, a Republican of Nevada, proposed adding a stricter verification process to the bill in order to prevent illegal immigrants from obtaining the Federally funded assistance, but Democrats refused to agree. As the CNN article reports, Representative Xavier Becerra, a Democrat of California said the proposal would be “unworkable”, which probably means impractical.

Others point out that Medicare and Medicaid and most other government programs already require sufficient proof of citizenship. If you can forge a birth certificate.. well, nevermind. Let’s not go there.

Another web rumor contends that a nondiscrimination clause in the House bill section 152 makes it clear that Democrats in the House have conspired to extend coverage to illegal immigrants, but the first line there clearly states that discrimination shall be allowed as “explicitly permitted by this act” ie. section 246 – “No Federal Payment for Undocumented Aliens”.

Still a third claim is that illegal aliens can obtain coverage through their legal family members, but that too is not true. As section 242 of the House Bill makes clear in paragraphs (1) and (2) of subsection (a), all individuals and covered dependents must qualify as “lawfully present in a state in the United States."

The most blatant claim of all is spread via email, claiming that the House bill explicitly states that all immigrants will receive free healthcare coverage under the reform, regardless of whether they are here legally or not. This is just pure baloney.

But here’s why none of that really matters. Here’s why, in fact, we should be arguing for illegal immigrants to be included. Very simply speaking, just as the case is with other uninsured individuals, it would be much cheaper to include them in equal access to healthcare, and to also include their self paid share of premium payments in the risk pool. Otherwise, we have what we have right now, which is that they receive substandard care, and are periodically treated -for free- in emergency rooms, and eventually cared for in hospitals –for free- while we try to combat their illnesses after they’ve progressed to serious and expensive levels.

It would be better and less expensive to all taxpayers to include them in universal healthcare so that they too can receive treatment while illnesses and diseases might still be manageable and/or curable and/or preventable through early and ongoing care. I’d like to add that it should be noted that almost half of illegal aliens in the U.S. are already insured anyway.

Additionally, and this is an important point, the whole ruckus over whether or not illegal immigrants will be covered under the plan or not seems a bit over the top considering that healthcare spending on uninsured illegal immigrants accounts for less than 1% of total healthcare spending in the United States. Since illegal workers using fraudulent social security numbers are paying more than that amount into Social Security and Medicare funds every year, which they will never be eligible to use themselves, their healthcare costs really can’t be considered a burden to Americans.

But here’s the most important reason of all why whether or not illegal immigrants –almost half of which are currently insured- will end up being eligible for federal subsidies under whatever new reform gets passed. In a study issued by the Institute of Medicine in 2002, it was shown that 18,000 people die every year in America due to lack of health insurance. That was in 2002. Insurance premiums have climbed more than 50% since then, and the number of uninsured Americans has grown right along with it. Many Americans employed in 2002 no longer have jobs at all, let alone employer supplemented healthcare.

The 2002 report –aptly titled “Care Without Coverage: Too Little, Too Late”- concerned itself with individuals between the ages of 25 and 64. It found that almost 8% of the annually uninsured and unnecessary deaths were caused by something as simple and preventable as high blood pressure. More than 1,300 people died in the last 24 hours due to a lack of health insurance. Statistics show that illegal immigrants make up 15 to 20% of the uninsured. Let’s take them out of the equation, since so many Americans have decided they don’t count, and you have about 1,050 American deaths every day, due to lack of affordable access to quality healthcare. In just 72 hours, lack of equal access to healthcare will kill more Americans than died on 9/11. Everyday that we stall and delay effective, comprehensive reform, more than a thousand more will die. We are holding these American people hostage. It’s a matter of life and death.

An Excellent and Well Written Post on Health Care by a Fellow Hubber

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