Contrary to assurances by the President and key Democrat Congressional leaders that illegal aliens will not be covered by health care reform, we now learn that House and Senate Democrats have been busy building gaping loopholes into their bills so illegal aliens can still obtain coverage.
Rather than requiring a robust check on eligibility, such as the U.S Department of Homeland Security's Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system that is used to determine eligibility for Medicaid, Food Stamps, and energy programs, both the House and the Senate have put in watered-down verification procedures that virtually all illegal aliens will be able to beat without even raising a sweat.
According to the New York Times, lawmakers openly acknowledge that both the Senate and House bills now call for relatively simple proof of identity, like a driver's license or Social Security card.
Since 75 percent of illegal aliens already have phony Social Security cards and the remaining 25 percent can obtain them for as little as $50 on the street, this verification provision isn't worth the paper it is written on and lawmakers know it.
Supposedly get-tough Republican solutions are equally useless. For example, Rep. Nathan Deal of Georgia, the senior Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, said he would try to offer an amendment to require a second document to verify immigration or citizenship status. If that is a driver's license, a birth certificate. or even a green card that is easily obtainable on the fraudulent document market, it won't make a bit of difference.
Illegal aliens will simply stop by their full-service, local phony document dealer and pick up whatever documents they need to get health care coverage with the encouragement and blessing of the U.S. Congress. After all, that's what they do to get jobs now and Congress doesn't seem to have a problem with that.
In the spirit of the economic stimulus and bailouts that politicians so readily embrace, perhaps this bill should be called "The Fraudulent Document Dealers full Employment Act."
Oh, and by the way this is only a stop-gap measure to ensure that illegal aliens have health care coverage until Congress finally gets around to passing comprehensive immigration reform. In the words of Sen. Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, "We are not trying to expand health care coverage to illegal immigrants through this legislation. That will have to be dealt with through comprehensive immigration reform."
It would certainly be nice if American citizens were as well represented by our Congress as illegal aliens are.