As a part of President Obama's campaign to advance the Democrat's health care legislation, he has publicly stated that illegal immigrants will not receive coverage under it. This is misleading since President Obama knows full well that whether or not a new health care bill is passed most illegal immigrants will continue to receive free health care coverage under present federal law as they have since 1986.
In addition, the Congressional Research Service, the research arm for the U.S. Congress, refutes (in a report entitled "Treatment of Noncitizens in H.R. 3200" dated August 25, 2009) the President and other Democrats who insist that House draft of the health care reform bill, America's Affordable Health Care Act of 2009, (H.R. 3200) does not cover illegal immigrants: "H.R. 3200 does not contain any restrictions on noncitizens participating in the Exchange -- whether the noncitizens are legally or illegally present or in the United States temporarily or permanently." It is true that illegal immigrants would generally not be required to participate and they would not be eligible for subsidies based on income; althugh there is no enforcement mechanism for the latter. To view a copy of this Congressional Research Report see the Center for Immigration Studies website: www.cis.org/articles/2009/CRS_Report_on_HR3200.pdf
For a detailed review of HR3200 see Steven A. Camarota, "Illegal Immigrants and HR3200: Estimate of Potential Cost to Taxpayers" Backgrounder, September 2009 at the www.cis.org website.
By the terms the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986 all hospitals with emergency rooms are compelled to treat, and hospitalize if necessary, all who enter their emergency rooms irrespective of the ability to pay for services rendered and irrespective of citizenship status. In this way most of our illegal immigrants, being both poor and uninsured, have their health care paid for without limit by our public and private hospitals across the country. Hospitals receive little or no reimbursement from the federal government for providing such services to illegal immigrants who do not pay (see blog of August 19 – Martin Memorial Medical Center Case – for more detail regarding this). In some cases the financial burden from treating immigrants has contributed to hospital closures.
By his actions President Obama has consistently favored easy treatment for the illegal immigrants working and living in this country and favors amnesty for nearly all. Every now and then he talks tough on immigration in order to throw a smoke screen over his real intentions which may be found, for example, in his administration’s unilateral decision to stop taking deportation action against “law-abiding” illegal immigrants who are living and working in this country in defiance of federal law. In addition to living and working here illegally, most immigrants also commit identity fraud for such purposes as helping to obtain jobs or drivers licenses thereby causing headaches for Americans whose identity was assumed (see "Illegal, But Not Undocumented," subtitled "Identity Theft, Document Fraud, and Illegal Employment" by Ronald W. Mortensen. This piece can be found as a June 2009 Backgrounder at the Center for Immigration Studies website http://cis.org/).
This Obama immigration policy has been manifested by public statements and the newly stated policy of going after employers of illegal immigrants without any attempt to detain and deport the illegal workers of those employers. At the same time, it seems likely that few large employers of illegals will ever be prosecuted since most relied on worker-supplied documentation which demonstrated a right to work in the U.S.
Most illegal workers who lose their jobs as a result of an employer crackdown will not give up all of the advantages of living in the U.S. and voluntarily return to their home countries where jobs are hard to find and lower paying. Instead they will find other U.S. employers who will hire them, including smaller employers who may hire them off the books, or they will find work as independent contractors. An estimated 50 percent of illegal immigrants currently work off the books or as independent contractors who most likely do not report their income.
For more information related to the Obama administration’s immigration policies see the July 9 blog entitled “Kinder, Gentler Obama Immigration Policy.”
