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Healthcare Reform Derailed
Illegal immigration continues to be a point of contention within the healthcare reform debate and the proposed Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 and the Baucus bill. Will illegal immigrants cost Americans more with healthcare reform? Will healthcare reform cover illegal immigrants? If not, what control mechanisms are in place to enforce this policy? These are just a few IR questions that have overtaken the healthcare reform debate. Fueling the fire behind the debate even further was a Republican Senator’s outburst during President’s Obama’s latest healthcare reform rally speech.

The Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, the House of Representative’s healthcare reform bill was introduced on July 14, and has been under fire since in regards to the inclusion of illegal immigrants. The Congressional Research Service prepared a report for Congress, analyzing the health bill in regards to non-citizens and found the following:

• Illegal aliens who can be classified as resident aliens (meet the substantial presence test) are mandated to have health insurance, with tax penalties for noncompliance
• A “Health Insurance Exchange” (beginning in 2013) would offer private plans alongside a public option, and provide eligible individuals and small businesses with access to insurers’ plans, including the public option, in a comparable way. The bill does not contain any restrictions on illegal immigrants to participate in the Exchange
• Premium credits or subsidies will be instituted (beginning in 2013), based on income that can be used toward the purchase of health insurance and to be eligible, individuals must be lawfully present in a state in the U.S. (thus illegal immigrants would be barred from receiving the premium credit)
• Medicaid will be extended up to 133 1/3% of poverty for populations that previously were not covered – meaning more coverage for those who already meet the immigration status requirements for Medicaid eligibility (current law excludes unauthorized aliens from full-benefit Medicaid coverage)

The heated debate with the House bill is that Democrats believe the language to be clear that illegal immigrants will not be eligible for benefits, while the Republicans combat that there is no mention of enforcement to prevent this usage (the Democrats had killed the amendment for the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, a verification system currently used by the government).

Supporters were not able to convince critics of the disconnection between healthcare reform and IR, despite repeated assurances that illegal immigrants would be excluded from any subsidized benefits under proposals before Congress. Critics still not convinced continued to derail healthcare reform. Most notably is Sen. Joe Wilson’s [R-SC] outburst during Obama’s primetime address to America and Congress, accusing him of lying about the coverage illegal immigrants would receive under the healthcare reform bill.

The Senate version of the healthcare reform bill was released by Max Baucus [D-MT], Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, last week. The bill was developed by a bi-partisan group of six senators, which includes stricter terminology surrounding healthcare in regards to illegal immigrants:

• Participate in the Health Insurance Exchange will require citizen verification
• Citizenship verification would also be required before receiving health care credits/subsidies, through a check of Social Security numbers and/or the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) records
• Credits/subsidies would be denied to anyone whose legal resident status is set to expire in less than a year

The Chairman’s mark up of the Baucus bill began Tuesday (9/22), allowing testimony and amendments (more than 500) to be proposed to the original plan present by Baucus and the Finance Committee. Immigration related issues will also be discussed as critics and supporters are already lining up on both sides of the issue – Sen. Robert Menendez [D-NJ] a member of the Finance Committee commented that he will withhold his support from the bill until the immigration matters are settled.

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New Study: Immigration and American Jobs Disconnect
A new Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) survey “Jobs Americans don’t want to do,” highlights the disconnection between immigration and unemployment. The study shows that contrary to mainstream beliefs jobs typically thought to be unacceptable or too physically demanding often passed up by Americans are actually filled by native-born Americans. This is especially contentious at the moment because of the recession and lack of jobs.

As originally highlighted in the June issue, one public perception is that immigrants take job opportunities from Natives, but this study highlights the opposite to be true. The study looked at over 450 civilian occupations, and found the perception to hold true for only four occupations: plasters/stucco masons (56% immigrants), graders and sorters of agricultural products (54%), personal appearance workers (53%) and tailors/dressmakers/sewers (51%). Conversely, many occupations such as maids/housekeepers, taxi drivers/chauffeurs, construction laborers, and janitors, which are typically thought to be immigrant dominant and shunned by Americans are actually
filled by a native majority.

Thus, this study sheds light on the misconception that immigrants are taking job opportunities from Americans and shows that only 1% of the occupations researched were actually filled by an immigrant majority.

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