Rep. Steve King’s Fudged Math Sets Off Alarm: ‘5,600,000 Illegal Aliens’ Covered By ‘Obamacare’
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa)
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) set off an alarm Wednesday morning, warning that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates indicate that 5,600,000 “illegal aliens” may be covered under “Obamacare.” King’s office didn’t do much number-crunching to come up with that big, scary figure. Instead, they relied on sheer inference to reach the nitwit conclusion that millions of undocumented immigrants will be covered by a health care bill that explicitly excludes them.
King’s primitive logic is as follows:
14.1 million “illegal aliens” will make up the 2019 non-Medicare population. If America’s Affordable Health Choices Act is passed, 17 million U.S. residents will still be uninsured in 2019 — nearly half of whom would be undocumented immigrants. That must mean that up to 8.5 million “illegal aliens” will not have health insurance by 2019. 14.1 million “illegal aliens” – 8.5 million uninsured “illegal aliens” = 5.6 million “illegal aliens” covered by America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009
However, none of the figures that King cites — including the 5.6 million number that he uses to strike fear in xenophobic hearts — are included in the CBO’s infamous health care bill projections. The CBO’s analysis does not reference the undocumented population other than to point out that the percentage of the uninsured population increases if undocumented immigrants are included in its estimates. There is no reference as to how many undocumented immigrants would be covered by the proposed health care bill because the entire CBO analysis was essentially written under the assumption that undocumented immigrants will not be eligible.
In a press release distributed this morning, King warns:
“Taxpaying families, already weighed down by bailouts and massive spending bills, cannot afford to pay for health insurance for millions of illegal aliens. Hard and smart working Iowans should not be forced [typo included] pay for illegal aliens to obtain health benefits under any health care reform plan. It is wrong to reward law breakers. The American people are speaking loud and clear and saying, ‘No health care for illegal aliens.’”
Hard and smart working Iowans rest assured, there is explicit language in the bill exempting undocumented immigrants from its coverage. Sec. 242. of America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 explicitly states:
“For purposes of this division, the term ‘affordable credit eligible individual’ means, subject to subsection (b), an individual who is lawfully present in a State in the United States.”
And if there is still doubt in anyone’s mind, President Obama told Katie Couric last night that “Obamacare” should not include undocumented immigrants. Instead, Obama indicated that we need to pass comprehensive immigration reform so that the country doesn’t have an undocumented population to begin with.
Republished with permission from the Wonk Room/Think Progress
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Actually, the number is much larger than Rep. King indicates. We have more than 20 million illegal aliens currently in our country. ObamaCare would cover at least 10 million of them at a huge, massive cost to American citizen taxpayers.
Illegal aliens are significant fiscal burdens on state budgets already. For example, illegals cost California more than $11 million for just medical-incarceration-educational expenses annually. Would that cost not be hampering California, they would not be in the significant fiscal crisis they now have.
Another example…illegals cost the state of North Carolina $1.3 billion annually for just incarceration – emergency medical care – education services to illegal immigrants. That figure does not include English instruction, law enforcement/courts, translators, assistance for public housing, food stamps, welfare payments, etc. Other factors not considered in the reports are job losses by citizens to illegal aliens and the depression of wages in the construction, landscaping, assembly, food processing and service sectors that most illegal aliens are employed in.
Overall, the cost of illegal immigration nationally is in excess of $100 billion annually.
Another cost factor never discussed is the remittances of $1.2 billion annually from illegal immigrants in North Carolina to Mexico. Nationwide, $26 billion in remittances are transferred from the U.S. to Mexico. This is money that is permanently transferred from our economy to a foreign country due to the non-enforcement of hiring laws.
Here’s the reality…
Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee defeated an amendment that would have prevented illegal aliens from using the so-called “public health insurance option.” Every Democrat on the panel voted against the measure.
Nevada GOP Rep. Dean Heller’s measure would have enforced income, eligibility, and immigration verification screening on all Obamacare patients. Unlike most everything else stuffed into the House Democrats’ plan, the citizenship vetting process would not have required building a new bureaucracy. Rep. Heller proposed using existing state and federal databases created years ago to root out entitlement fraud.
If the congressional majority were truly committed to President Obama’s quest to wring cost savings from the system, why won’t they adopt the same anti-fraud checks imposed on other government health and welfare beneficiaries?
President Obama lit the fuse in February when he signed the massive expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). That law loosened eligibility requirements for legal immigrants and their children by watering down document and evidentiary standards – making it easy for individuals to use fake Social Security cards to apply for benefits with little to no chance of getting caught. In addition, Obama’s S-CHIP expansion revoked Medicaid application time limits that were part of the 1996 welfare reform law. Immigration activists see the provisions as first steps toward universal coverage for illegals.
For more, see: http://michellemalkin.com/2009/07/22/obamacare-for-illegal-aliens/