H-1Bs and Obamacare
H-1Bs and Obamacare
Date: Friday, August 28, 2009 2:40 AM
<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 2052 -- 8/28/2009 >>>>>
Since the health care debate began, have you ever wondered if H-1Bs will get
national health care benefits under the proposed bill, H.R. 3200? In
this newsletter I will answer that question.
Keep in mind that the answer could change at any time because the bill is
constantly being amended -- and this is by no means the only bill that may be
considered. The Senate has yet to come out with a national health care bill.
The bill is huge, over 1000 pages and growing, and it's morphing with
amendments.
It's not difficult to find a section that deals with nonimmigrants. There are
many web sites where you can read the bill, but to save you time searching use
this one:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-3200
SEC. 242. AFFORDABLE CREDIT ELIGIBLE INDIVIDUAL.
(a) Definition-CommentsClose CommentsPermalink
(1) IN GENERAL- 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 (other than as a
nonimmigrant described in a subparagraph (excluding
subparagraphs (K), (T), (U), and (V)) of section
101(a)(15) of the Immigration and Nationality Act)--
The most important thing about Section 242 to consider is which nonimmigrants
are not qualified to get credits for private insurance and which ones are
qualified. H-1B is defined in section H of the INA 101, which is not on their
exclude list. Sorry about the double negative but Congressional lawmakers just
love that kind of confusing Boolean logic. So, H-1B visa holders are not not-
qualified which means that they are qualified.
Actually, those exclusions don't include guest worker visas so choose your
alphabet soup of visas like H-2B, L-1, O, or whatever -- they all qualify for
health care benefits. So, H-1Bs can get affordable credits, which means if
they decide to use private health insurance over the public option they can
get federal subsidies to make it easier to afford.
So, can H-1Bs get the public option?
The health care bill actually REQUIRES H-1Bs TO HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE.
That's because H-1Bs are considered to be resident aliens. So, if
nonimmigrants such as H-1Bs choose to go with the public option they can get
the same national health care that eveyone else gets.
Now that you have the background, the analysis done by the Congressional
Research Service will make sense.
http://www.cis.org/articles/2009/CRS_Report_on_HR3200.pdf
Notably, many categories of nonimmigrants in the United States who
have work authorization (i.e., temporary workers) would meet the
definition of a resident alien, and as a result would be required
under H.R. 3200 to have health insurance. Nonetheless, many of
these aliens would be ineligible for the credits under the bill.
For example, professional specialty workers (H-1B) are admitted
to the United States for up to three years, and can stay for a
maximum of six years. Thus, in general, these aliens would be
considered resident aliens under the I.R.C. and would be required
under H.R. 3200 to have health insurance, but would be ineligible
for the credits under the bill because they are nonimmigrants.
H-1Bs are legal aliens, so they would have very little reason to claim
otherwise. Illegal aliens are a very different situation.
SEC. 246. NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS.
Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for
affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are
not lawfully present in the United States.
The title of Section 246 is amusing. It sounds like they couldn't bear to
write "illegal alien", which is the correct legal term, and they also didn't
like the politically correct term "undocumented immigrants", so they
compromised by calling them "undocumented aliens". Pay close attention because
there is no mention of nonimmigrants in this clause, which means everyone
qualifies except those stupid enough to volunteer the fact that they are an
illegal alien.
Section 246 sounds very ironclad, doesn't it? Well, it isn't!
There is a loophole in this law that allows just about everyone on U.S.
soil to qualify for national health care -- even illegal aliens! The hidden
loophole lies in the implicit "don't ask don't tell" policy used qualify
people for health care. There is no provision to verify eligibility based on
citizenship or immigration status, so everyone who applies will get health
care. That loophole actually makes all discussion about H-1B eligibility a
moot issue since it's unlikely they would ever be asked about their
immigration status.
So, in conclusion, all nonimmigrant guest worker visa holders will qualify for
comprehensive health care reform. Two excellent articles are included that
debunk President Obama and his cohorts who claim that illegal aliens won't get
health care. Most of them are flat out lying because there is no way they
could be so ignorant that they don't know these things.
Be sure to watch the youtube video that is linked on the vdare article.
There is another excellent video on CSPAN worth checking out where immigration
experts discuss the issue.
REFERENCES:
http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2009/08/25/democrats-insist-on-extravagant-medical-giveaway-for-illegals-of-the-world/
Democrats Insist on Extravagant Medical Giveaway for Illegals of the World
http://townhall.com/columnists/IraMehlman/2009/08/27/the_myth_that_health_care_reform_wont_cover_illegal_aliens,_is_itself_a_myth
The "Myth" that Health Care Reform Won't Cover Illegal Aliens, Is Itself a
Myth
http://www.numbersusa.com/content/nusablog/edwardsj1/august-24-2009/immigration-and-health-care-legislation-table-will-extend-health-c
Immigration and Health Care: Legislation on the Table WILL Extend Health Care
to Illegal Aliens
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=288462-1
Impact of Immigration on Health Care Reform
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2009/08/25/democrats-insist-on-extravagant-medical-giveaway-for-illegals-of-the-world/
Democrats Insist on Extravagant Medical Giveaway for Illegals of the World
Posted By Brenda Walker On 25 August 2009 @ 3:43 In General | Comments
Disabled
At least two attempts have been made to require identification to receive
treatment under Obamacare and have been voted down by Democrats bowing to the
demands of the Hispanic caucus which insists that the bill be free of any
citizenship ID requirement. Obama is playing word games to BS his way through
because he knows that the American people strongly reject including illegal
aliens: 80 percent of voters polled objected in a June Rasmussen survey.
One example of Obama obscuring the truth was his August 20 radio interview
with Michael Smerconish:
None of the bills that have been voted on in Congress, and none of the
proposals coming out of the White House propose giving coverage to illegal
immigrants -- none of them. That has never been on the table; nobody has
discussed it. So everybody who is listening out there, when you start hearing
that somehow this is all designed to provide health insurance to illegal
immigrants, that is simply not true and has never been the case.
Okay. Nowhere in the bill does it say "Illegal aliens are welcome to steal
free healthcare from the American taxpayer." But the legislation has none of
the normal citizenship verification (such as the documents needed to receive
Medicaid), so the door is open for everyone on the planet. The Democrats
wanton profligacy tells the world to bring on those kiddies needing organ
transplants and other expensive procedures: America is at your service. The
Dems are acting to bury us in further unnecessary debt in an act of economic
treason.
The video below (Citizenship Verification Should Be Used For Government-Run
Health Plan) shows Congressman Dean Heller (R-NV) offering his amendment in
committee, which was defeated by the Democrat majority.
Congressman Nathan Deal (R-GA) submitted a similar amendment, which was also
defeated by the Democrats. [WATCH]
During the Energy and Commerce Committee mark-up of the Democrat
healthcare reform proposal, Rep. Deal offered an amendment to ensure that
illegal immigrants are not allowed to get US taxpayer-funded Medicaid
benefits. The amendment offered by Rep. Deal would maintain the requirement in
current law that all State Medicaid programs verify the citizenship status and
identity of all applicants for Medicaid coverage. Rep. Deal was the author of
this citizenship-verification requirement when it was originally enacted in
2006, and this amendment would have prevented the Democrats health reform
bill from undermining this requirement.
Unfortunately, the amendment was defeated on a largely party-line vote of
28 Yeas and 29 Nays.
Last week s CIS healthcare panel [Transcript] underlined the hazard of having
open borders to the third world while offering the magnet of first-world
medicine free to them. Robert Rector emphasized that point:
If we were to look at the current health-care reform legislation, this
takes an unprecedented step in opening up the U.S. welfare system to illegal
immigrants. Under the current law, really forever, we have had a system of
identity checks that largely prevent adult illegal immigrants from getting
onto these means-tested welfare programs. You have to be able to substantiate
that you re in the country legally and you have to be able to substantiate
that you, if you re a legal immigrant, that you ve been here over the time
limits for eligibility.
The health-care reform legislation turns that on its back and tramples it
into the dust. It basically says we will not verify; we will not check.
We have a complete open door for every illegal immigrant, current and in the
future, to simply enroll and receive benefits under this program. We not only
will not check them at the door; we will not check them once they begin to
receive the benefits. I would say if you re going to do that with respect to
health care, why would you not also establish the same precedent with respect
to food stamps, to public housing, to the Earned Income Tax Credit and so
forth. [...]
I believe that under this legislation, we will begin to draw the seriously
ill from all over the world to begin to come here to receive free medical
treatment. And once you hook these individuals up to the dialysis machine or
whatever it is, we re very unlikely, as a society, to pull the plug and say
get out of here. It is an absolutely mind-boggling precedent that s being
established here. If we look overall at the cost of means-tested welfare -
that is, again, aid that is targeted to lower-income people; Medicaid, public
housing, food stamps and so forth - what we find that is over the next decade,
the United States will spend $1.5 trillion on means-tested welfare for lower-
skilled immigrants - those with a high school degree or less: $1.5 trillion.
It s a recipe for economic disaster, brought to us by the Democrat party at
the direction of the Hispanic caucus.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://townhall.com/columnists/IraMehlman/2009/08/27/the_myth_that_health_care_reform_wont_cover_illegal_aliens,_is_itself_a_myth
The "Myth" that Health Care Reform Won't Cover Illegal Aliens, Is Itself a
Myth Ira Mehlman Thursday, August 27, 2009 The professional chattering class -
the men and women who appear on television and radio and explain how the world
works to the rest of us- are fond of castigating politicians who vote on
complex legislation without having read the bills. It seems the politicians
are not the only ones who refuse to let ignorance get in the way of expressing
an opinion.
As the summer of discontent drags on, the news media are replete with reports
about raucous town hall meetings filled with angry constituents upset about
various aspects of H.R. 3200, the America's Affordable Health Care Act of 2009
(AAHCA). At town hall meetings, Members of Congress intrepid enough to
actually face the people they represent have been asked to address why H.R.
3200 will allow illegal aliens to obtain publicly-funded health care.
Perhaps more than any other criticism of the health care reform bill, it is
this assertion that drives the Washington pundits crazy. It also serves, in
their minds, as a prime example of how the public is being whipped into a
frenzy by President Obama's political adversaries.
"Pants on fire," declares the politifacts.com website, calling the assertion
that illegal aliens would benefit from the program a blatant lie.
NBC Nightly News found a health care expert from academia to flatly dismiss
the concerns of the hysterical masses. So did the Orwellian named CNN Truth
Squad, which called in another academic health care expert to deny that
illegal aliens would be covered under the House bill. For those who might have
missed the first verdict, Anderson Cooper assembled a group of political
experts a few nights later who similarly ruled that concerned citizens have
regrettably been drinking the Kool-Aid served up by opponents of the bill.
What all of these "experts," like a lot of members of Congress who will be
voting on the bill, have in common is that they haven't read the bill, or, if
they have, they failed to take note of what is not in the bill. Nowhere does
H.R. 3200 say that illegal aliens are ineligible to enroll in the proposed
"public option." To the contrary, Section 202 provides that "all individuals"
are eligible for benefits offered through the government exchange unless they
are enrolled in another health insurance plan.
Then we come to the portion of the bill relating to payment and subsidies.
Section 246 states that illegal aliens are ineligible for government
"affordability credits" (the subsidies that will allow people to purchase
private insurance), which seems to be as far as most of the pundits have read.
Saying that illegal aliens are ineligible is one thing; providing an
enforcement mechanism to ensure that ineligible persons do not obtain this
benefit is another matter. Section 246 lacks an eligibility verification
requirement, thus rendering the prohibition against subsidies for illegal
aliens meaningless.
The complete omission of language barring illegal aliens from coverage under a
government-run insurance program, and the Mack Truck-size loophole in the
affordability credit provision, are not mere oversights. Section 245 contains
three pages of text directing the government to verify income eligibility for
this new health insurance program. The authors of the bill, however, did not
seem to think similar verification requirements for immigration status was
important enough to also include in the bill.
Fortunately, at least one member of the House Ways & Means Committee, a key
committee involved in crafting the bill, did notice that these restrictions
were missing. Rep. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) offered an amendment that would have
applied the same eligibility verification procedures already in place for
Medicaid to the new plan in H.R.3200. These verification requirements have
been on the books for years. But, in a straight party-line vote, every
Democrat on the Ways & Means Committee voted against the Heller amendment.
Members of Congress who defend H.R. 3200 want to be able to tell their
constituents, the American people, that illegal aliens will not receive
coverage. At the same time, they are winking at the open borders lobby (who
insist that illegal aliens must be covered) and assuring these special
interest groups that nothing in the bill will actually prevent illegal aliens
from benefiting. Even the well known Capitol Hill journal Roll Call has
reported how the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has been lobbying House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi to leave the bill in its current form, because those members
understand the bill will allow backdoor health coverage for illegal aliens.
What is harder to explain is why the self-appointed watchdogs and truth squads
in the media so vehemently insist that the case is closed on the subject of
whether illegal aliens would qualify for coverage under AAHCA.
It is one thing to read language that is in the bill and come to a different
conclusion about what it means. It is quite another to pontificate about
language and restrictions that are not there at all.
Still the pundits, who adamantly deny that the bill covers illegal aliens,
refuse to address perhaps the most important question: If President Obama and
Congress agree that the bill should not cover illegal aliens, why would
Congress defeat language that makes it crystal clear that the bill will
achieve their stated objective?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.numbersusa.com/content/nusablog/edwardsj1/august-24-2009/immigration-and-health-care-legislation-table-will-extend-health-c
Immigration and Health Care: Legislation on the Table WILL Extend Health Care
to Illegal Aliens By edwardsj1 Created 08/24/2009 - 11:06am 1251126360
1251126360
The body field of the blog entry is not used.
Homepage Teaser:
Just about the time the Center for Immigration Studies was holding a press
briefing at the National Press Club about the immigration and health reform
connection, proponents from President Obama on down were denying that illegal
aliens would receive taxpayer-funded health care under pending legislation.
Just about the time the Center for Immigration Studies was holding a press
briefing at the National Press Club about the immigration and health reform
connection, proponents from President Obama on down were denying that illegal
aliens would receive taxpayer-funded health care under pending legislation.
I m here to tell you, as I told the Press Club crowd, the legislation on the
table does, honest to goodness, effectively extend coverage to illegal aliens.
Take the premium subsidy in the House bill, H.R. 3200. This lies in the part
of the legislation (Division A, Title II) that creates a Health Choices
Administration, adds the infamous -"public option," sets up and runs the -
"exchange" clearinghouse for getting insurance, and controls a graduated
premium subsidy program through allocation of -"individual affordability
credits."
The subsidy, found in Section 242, will give a voucher to people earning
between 133 percent of the official poverty level and 400 percent of that
income level (or, up to about $88,000 a year for a family of four).
Legal immigrants certainly qualify under H.R. 3200 for this subsidy.
Section 242(a)(1) makes eligible "an individual who is lawfully present in a
State in the United States (other than as a nonimmigrant described in a
subparagraph (excluding subparagraphs (K), (T), (U), and (V)) of section
101(a)(15) of the Immigration and Nationality Act)."
A political fig leaf purports to keep illegal aliens from receiving the
subsidy. Section 246 says, "Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal
payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not
lawfully present in the United States."
However, reading the legislation as a whole, its glaring omission is any
requirement to verify someone s immigration or citizenship status. For
instance, H.R. 3200 makes no reference to the verification system in current
law that s used for nearly all government welfare and other public programs.
If lawmakers wanted enrolling agents, including bureaucrats at the new Health
Choices Administration, to use the Systematic Alienage Verification for
Entitlements (SAVE) system, the bill should include a reference and authorize
SAVE s application to this government program.
In other words, the silence of H.R. 3200 regarding SAVE and mandatory
verification makes Section 246 just empty words. In fact, the Ways and Means
Committee outright voted down an amendment by Rep. Dean Heller to require
eligibility verification before qualifying someone to receive a taxpayer
subsidy. Also, "lawfully present" covers a lot of ground. Does it include
someone here under Temporary Protected Status, for instance? Again, the
absence of eligibility verification requirements leaves open a lot of room for
waste, fraud, and abuse.
A similar situation of setting up blinders occurs in H.R. 3200 s Medicaid
provisions. Division B s Title VII, Section 1701 expands Medicaid eligibility
to those with incomes a third above the federal poverty level.
This provision dictates that "the State shall accept without further
determination the enrollment under this title of an individual determined by
the Commissioner to be a non-traditional Medicaid eligible individual."
In other words, the bill prohibits asking any further questions about new
Medicaid enrollees.
Rather, the bill section promotes "presumptive eligibility" concerning
Medicaid expansion. Read it for yourself, right from Section 1702(a):
(ii) PRESUMPTIVE ELIGIBILITY OPTION- Pursuant to such memorandum, insofar
as the memorandum has selected the option described in section
205(e)(3)(B) of the America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, the State
shall provide for making medical assistance available during the presumptive
eligibility period and shall, upon application of the individual for medical
assistance under this title, promptly make a determination (and subsequent
redeterminations) of eligibility in the same manner as if the individual had
applied directly to the State for such assistance except that the State shall
use the income-related information used by the Commissioner and provided to
the State under the memorandum in making the presumptive eligibility
determination to the maximum extent feasible. (emphasis added)
And, once again, the lack of any provision mentioning or requiring
verification, mandatory use of the SAVE system under this part of the bill, or
any other accountability requirement opens the process up to signing up
illegal aliens for Medicaid.
In the Energy and Commerce Committee, a mandatory verification amendment was
voted down when Rep. Nathan Deal offered it. A political figleaf amendment was
added by voice vote, but the loopholes and potential for waste, fraud, and
abuse remain wide open in the Medicaid provisions.
Whatever you think of health reform, a combination of things makes it certain
that illegal aliens will receive government health coverage. The most obvious
is the omission heck, the outright rejection of corrective amendments of
eligibility verification requirements. The other factor is the designed ease
of enrolling people in Medicaid, for "affordability credits," and the like.
Bottom line, the health legislation Congress is considering establishes an
"enroll now, don t ask questions later" regime. That s a recipe for covering
more people, but many of whom may not actually qualify. A huge number are
almost guaranteed to be illegal aliens or legal immigrants still in their
first five years in the country who are supposed to turn to their visa sponsor
for financial support. And having more people in a public program translates
pretty quickly into higher costs. In this case, we re talking on the order of
tens and hundreds of billions of dollars.
Please read more, where CIS has published my analysis.
DR. JAMES EDWARDS is one of the legislative specialists who represents
NumbersUSA daily on Capitol Hill. He is co-author of "The Congressional
Politics of Immigration Reform"
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