Immigration Concerns Raised By Joe Wilson And John Boehner

South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson’s “You lie” statement is now part of the political consciousness. Yesterday Wilson was on Fox News defending his actions in a manner and apologizing for them in another manner.

He stated that he was sorry about how he voiced his concerns. He didn’t mean disrespect to the President by it. But at the same time he admitted that he thought he was at least a little bit responsible for bringing to light the illegal immigration problems that needed to be addressed in the proposed health plan.

In a press conference House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) conducted from Capitol Hill to discuss health care reform legislation, he brought up a few of his concerns, some of which Wilson shared.

Boehner and Wilson both mentioned two prior Republican sponsored amendments to the proposed bill that the Democrats voted down, that would have put illegal immigrant screening mechanisms. Wilson explained his reading of the bill was correct, relating to the outburst, by pointing out that the White House added a screening mechanism to the House’s proposal after said outburst.

The two eligibility enforcement amendments that Wilson and Boehner mentioned, the ones that were proposed in the House, and the Democrats defeated, were defeated for a good reason.

The Heller Amendment would have given private insurers unparalleled access to the sensitive income and identity information of everyone applying for health care assistance, all the while curtailing the privacy and redress responsibilities that the Social Security Act requires of government agencies.

The second failed amendment presented by Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA) would have “narrowed the categories of legal immigrants who would be eligible for affordability credits,” according to Health Policy Attorney Sonal Ambegaokar, and “imposed a burdensome and costly documentation procedure that we know has been a sledgehammer for a non-existent problem.”

These are the same “affordability credits” that are clearly not available for illegal immigrants, Section 246 of H.R. 3200.

The two amendments were not rejected by Democrats because they want illegal immigrants to be able to get healthcare funded by federal tax dollars. They were rejected to deny private insurers to much of the tax payers private information and the other one was for fiscal responsibility.

Along with Section 246 of America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (H.R. 3200) explicitly stating that only individuals who are lawfully present in the U.S. will receive any benefits provided in the bill, it is also, in H.R. 3200, that the Health Choices Commissioner is responsible for determining the eligibility of individual affordability credits which implies that he’ll also have to determine the mechanism to verify the eligibility and immigration status of noncitizens.

Rep. John BoehnerJohn Boehner pointed out an analysis of the proposal which pointed out that there were no mechanisms in the H.R. 3200 proposal to prohibit illegals from getting “affordability credits”.

CRS’ analysis is pretty much says that the “verification mechanisms for the new subsidy program will be determined during the implementation process (after the bill is passed) which allows the government to choose the “mechanism [which] best matches the underlying process for getting a subsidy.”

The report also points out that nothing in the House bill overturns the precedent set by the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act which prohibited illegal immigrants from being eligible for most public benefits, while severely restricting the eligibility of legal immigrants.

“It should also be noted that, in the case of Medicaid, stringent verification mechanisms are known to have barred more American citizens than undocumented immigrants at a high cost to taxpayers: for every $100 spent by taxpayers to implement documentation requirements in six states, only 14 cents were saved,” wrote Andrea Christian Nill, on a progressive blog.

In opposition to what Boehner and Wilson would have you believe, the report actually shed a light on something that is not beneficial to the illegal immigrant.

Andrea Nill writes:

“The House bill currently mandates that all citizens as well as “resident aliens” must have health insurance. However, “resident alien” is a term defined by tax, not immigration law and it includes undocumented immigrants who meet the “substantial presence test.”

“That means that all undocumented immigrants who fall into the category of “resident alien” would be required to obtain health insurance and will be fined if they fail to do so. However, that doesn’t in any way imply that the government is going to help them since only individuals who are lawfully present in the United States are eligible for any of the federal assistance provided in the bill(as per Section 246).

What this means really is that the reform bill will penalize illegal immigrant that qualify as “resident alien”, they will be fined for not having insurance they are not allowed to buy.

I can understand in reading the CRS report how the Republicans can construe it as saying it will pay for illegal immigrants. But that is not what the CRS report said at all.

Edwin Park of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities admits that the bill doesn’t articulate a specific eligibility verification system. He does points out that it will be determined once health care reform is passed and “the work of establishing the new system gets underway.”

In the meantime, critics of the proposal should rest assured that there is nothing in the bill that overturns the tough verification requirements of Medicaid.

Jonathan Blazer of the National Immigration Law Center explains why verification mechanisms for the new subsidy program will be determined during the implementation process (after the bill is passed):

“The appropriate verification mechanism depends on the structure of the subsidy and its delivery system in the final bill; most importantly whether the subsidy comes through the tax system…The federal government already has several verification mechanisms readily available, and it will chose which mechanism best matches the underlying process for getting a subsidy. This better ensures that the system will ‘work’ in the real world.”

What that means is that they don’t specify the verification mechanism in the proposal because they don’t know which one would be the best one for the system we will ultimately end up with. Also they don’t know if taxpayers or private insurers will cover the costs and therefore they don’t know who should have the right to determine what type of verification mechanism to use, which must so be determined during the implementation process.

The H.R. 3200 now has a verification mechanism within its pages, due to the “You lie” outburst. Whether or not it is the best type of mechanism, and whether or not we could have gotten private insurers to pay for it instead of tax payers, I don’t know.

All I know is that there were plenty of provisions in the very heavy proposed bill, none of which were paying a single penny to illegal immigrants. There were clearly worded sections and there were three studies conducted on the health reform proposal.

The Republicans picked the one that was the least clearly worded and they spun the data to have to mean what they need it to mean to push their political agenda.

I don’t know if Joe WilsonJoe Wilson is a perpetrator in these schemes or if he is a victim. On Fox News Sunday, Wilson looked sincere and a little embarrassed. He seemed hurt when he was accused of being racist. He spoke politely and civilly. And he sounded like he believed everything he was saying.

John Boehner on the other hand was another story.

Before finishing this article I would like to post what Section 246 is:

H.R. 3200: Sec 246

NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS

Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.

It is pretty clear that the drafters of this proposal did not want to pay for illegal immigrants.