Feature Story

August 6, 2007

New Charges about How House Children's Health Bill Affects Undocumented Immigrants Are False

From Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

Rep. Nathan Deal has launched a new attack on House health insurance legislation that would cover about 5 million uninsured lower-income children, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. Rep. Deal charged the bill opens Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to illegal immigrants, encourages more illegal immigrants to enter the United States, and reflects an 'eagerness to offer free services to illegals at taxpayer expense.'

The charges are false.

The House bill would give states more flexibility in how to ensure that children applying for Medicaid are citizens or eligible legal immigrants. This would address severe problems caused by a poorly designed documentation requirement imposed in 2006, which has shut tens of thousands of U.S. citizen children out of Medicaid while identifying virtually no undocumented immigrants.

The bill tightens controls to ensure that no federal Medicaid funds go to undocumented immigrants. It requires all states to conduct annual audits to ensure that undocumented immigrants are not participating in the program; states whose audits find any undocumented immigrants would be required to fully repay the federal government.

The bill would also allow states to provide Medicaid or SCHIP coverage to legal immigrant children and pregnant women during their first five years in the country, as the National Governors Association and the National Conference of State Legislatures have called for on a bipartisan basis.

Read more from this post.