Friday, September 11, 2009
Summary of GAO and Oversight Staff findings on Medicaid citizenship documentation requirements
To follow Evan's post, this is the study that the NYT editorial referenced stating that only 8 undocumented immigrants were found through the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA). Additionally, the DRA resulted in U.S. citizens being declined coverage and only 1 state received potential fiscal benefits from reduction in coverage for undocumented immigrants. This may be part of the reasoning for why the Democrats voted against the amendment to HR 3200 that would have required anyone applying for insurance coverage to show documentation in order to be eligible.
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3 comments:
First of all, if a legal U.S. resident expects to be able to function in society, he or she should have sufficient documentation of their standing (birth certificate, government-issued identification cards or licences, green cards, passports, etc.). Clearly, if requiring simple documents to receive government benefits is amounting to millions in administrative costs on both the state and federal levels, we have some serious issues regarding who we hire to file paperwork and answer phone calls.
Second, the fact that "only" 8 illegals were caught could stem from them knowing that they need documentation to receive benefits. If no certifiable documentation is required under a public option, I just don't see how they will be able to prevent illegal aliens in this country from receiving benefits.
Second of all,
Currently, under the House bill, undocumented immigrants are not banned from purchasing health insurance. The real question is whether or not they recieve federal subsidies, which under Sections 246 and 242(a) they clearly cannot. So, where is the problem in undocumented immigrants purchasing insurance? Can't it only improve public health? However, Robert Gibbs did say on Thursday that Obama might go further to ban undocumented immigrants from purchasing insurance at all, but that is still up in the air. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/11/us/politics/11wilson.html?ref=todayspaper)
Secondly, unless the Heller amendment that proposed the documentation requirement can find a way to address the administrative costs, the privacy concerns involved with having open access to personal documents, or the U.S. citizens that could be denied coverage due to incorrect data in the database, it is currently irrelevant.
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