The New State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) Will Help Illegal Aliens

by RightMarch.Com

posted 09/30/07

Tell Congress to REJECT SCHIP & Medicaid for Illegal Aliens!

Liberals are trying To Give Taxpayer-Funded Healthcare Benefits to Illegals. It seems like every time we turn around, liberals in Congress are trying to do everything they can to help illegal aliens. They've tried amnesty, they've tried "guest worker" programs, and they've tried sneaky "back door" legislation. And they're at it again.

This time, they're trying to give them FREE taxpayer-funded healthcare benefits! As the House prepares to debate the expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program ("SCHIP"), Rep. Jim McCrery (R-LA) has made us aware of a provision in the bill that will make it significantly easier for both legal and illegal aliens to fraudulently qualify for the Medicaid and SCHIP programs.

Current law requires that states must determine whether persons applying for Medicaid and SCHIP are U.S. citizens and therefore entitled to participate in these programs. States can satisfy this requirement by having applicants show specified types of identity documents, like drivers' licenses, passports or birth certificates, when they apply for these programs.

Section 211 of the new bill will substantially weaken the current requirements and make it easier for both legal and illegal aliens to break the law and qualify for Medicaid and SCHIP.

The language in the bill would allow states to disregard the current requirement to review actual identity documents and instead submit the names and Social Security numbers of applicants to the Social Security Administration ("SSA").

In order to better understand the impact of these changes, Rep. McCrery recently wrote a letter to the Social Security Administration, asking whether this type of process could detect and prevent legal and illegal aliens from improperly qualifying for Medicaid and SCHIP. In his response, SSA Commissioner Astrue indicated that the new provision would fail to identify and therefore prevent the following categories of persons from illegally getting healthcare benefits through Medicaid or SCHIP:

• Legal aliens who are not naturalized citizens;
• Illegal aliens fraudulently using another persons valid name and Social Security number;
• Individuals who have illegally overstayed a valid work permit.

Did you catch that? Illegal aliens will be able to fraudulently get taxpayer-funded healthcare benefits under SCHIP -- IF Congress passes this provision! We must stop them. There's no time to waste -- Congress is set to debate the SCHIP bill THIS WEEK. They need to hear from hundreds of thousands of patriotic Americans, NOW! And we've got a GREAT way to do that! TAKE ACTION: Commissioner Astrue's letter makes it explicitly clear that this new provision will not prevent legal and illegal aliens from violating our laws and qualifying for Medicaid and SCHIP. We need to OVERWHELM Congress with messages urging them to oppose this bill, and maintain the current law protections that prevent the abuse of these taxpayer funded healthcare programs.