Healthcare Update on the Fate of Illegal Aliens
Posted on | December 8, 2009 | No Comments
Previous posts have given a lot of attention to the battle over reforming the nation’s healthcare system, since movement on comprehensive immigration reform is highly unlikely until the healthcare debate wraps up. In particular, we have focused on the issue of undocumented immigrants in a reformed healthcare system.
Yesterday the Associated Press reported that, though the reform bill that passed the House of Representatives would allow illegal immigrants to access the proposed healthcare Exchange (without the benefit of subsidies), the Senate bill that will emerge in the coming days is unlikely to make this allowance. Thus the political fight over immigrants in healthcare policy will continue into the process of reconciling the two different bills.
This is unfortunate for two reasons: first, as we have repeatedly argued, the exclusion of immigrants from the Exchange is a political, not a policy, choice, and it helps no one. Second, the energy spent settling this sophomoric controversy will detract from real debate on the substance of healthcare reform.
Comments
Leave a Reply