What's in the health care reform bill for Illegal Aliens?

The health care reform issue is a pretty vast issue, but one part of it has to deal with illegal aliens. One of the questions in my survey located at the top of this blog is whether aliens should also benefit from health care reform. Right off the bat, you may say absolutely not. But the only problem here is that illegal aliens are getting a free ride right now. They can walk into a state run hospital and receive health care for free. Do you think that Barack Obama is going to take health care away from people. All he talks about is being able to supply health care to every person in the United States. That includes aliens. Is that fair. I don't think so. There are so many people that try to do things right, and there are 100X more doing things wrong and getting away with it.

For example in a personal situation, I am now married to my wife who is from the Philippines, who did everything it would take to come here legally, and at a very high cost. In a few years, she will be able to receive her naturalization papers and become a U.S. citizen, and of course I support her all the way. She could not just step across the border as the illegal aliens do from Mexico and take up a new life in this country, along with getting free medical attention. I had to sponsor her as my fiancee so that she could acquire a fiancee visa. The attorney fees and paperwork that I needed to file required a good sum of money. My wife, then as my fiancee, went through the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines, and we flew back to the United States together in an 8,000 mile journey. She obtained a work permit first, and it was a little difficult for us and a little costly, as we had to apply twice and pay the fee twice, because the paperwork was originally filled out improperly the first time. Then came the green card which meant another wait and another fee.

I work for IBM, and my medical insurance premiums have been rising year after year, but the insurance covers both my wife and I. But I pay more and more each year. According to President Obama's health care plan, I will have the ability to keep my present insurance, or go with the government assisted health plan if it becomes law. Most people will elect to go to the government assisted health care plans, because they most likely will be allot cheaper.

At the present time, I think that the final version of the new health care plan supported by President Obama would call for illegal aliens to register if they want any medical coverage at all.
If the bill gets proper attention, then most likely illegals will not be able to get medical coverage for free if they now want health insurance coverage. If they are working, their employers should have to supply a policy to them that they can afford. Employers will no longer be allowed to harbor illegal aliens. Actually, they were never permitted to do so in the past, but they got away with it so that they could acquire cheap labor from the illegal aliens. Now it may mean that illegal aliens would would have to register, spelling the beginning of the end for illegal aliens.

So when you hear that President Obama will be supplying health insurance to illegal aliens, it most likely will be for a price. No longer will a person that doesn't even belong here in this country be able to receive health insurance for free. This alone should save substantial money when it comes to health care costs, along with reducing the revenues lost by state run hospitals.

But now here is a sad fact. Since hospitals don’t collect immigration figures… it’s unclear how much people who are in this country illegally add to health care costs — but it’s probably a pretty significant chunk of change.

Consider this: There are about 46-million people without health insurance in the U.S. Of those, the Pew Hispanic Center estimates that there are about six-million uninsured adults who are illegal; and 700,000 uninsured children.

These facts just underscore the depth of the problems centered around health insurance. President Obama may have been trying to bite off more than he can chew here in a matter of speaking, but still he has the guts to try. He has allot of supporters, but the figures of people that favor his plans are dwindling every day.

Regardless of what happens here, most people say that something needs to be done regarding affordable health insurance for everyone. But you will still have a few people that are totally against the government becoming involved with medical issues of the American people. Conservatives (Republicans) will most likely fight to the 'death' sort of speaking, to do whatever can be done to stop the President from passing any kind of bill to help the American people receive government sponsored health care coverage.

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One Health Care Proposal passes in the Senate committee today

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- One of several proposals to overhaul the U.S. health care system passed a Senate committee Wednesday, with its ailing chairman praising the $600 billion plan as a step toward his longtime goals.

Committee chairman Sen. Edward Kennedy in a statement praised the bill. He voted by proxy.

The 13-10 vote in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee split along party lines, with its top Republican arguing it costs too much and would ration care to Americans. But Sen. Edward Kennedy, its chairman, said, "We have done the hard work that the American people sent us here to do."
"We know, however, that our work is not over -- far from it," Kennedy said in a written statement. The senator is battling cancer and voted by proxy.
"As we move from our committee room to the Senate floor, we must continue the search for solutions that unite us, so that the great promise of quality affordable health care for all can be fulfilled," Kennedy said in the statement.
Health care has long been one of the Massachusetts Democrat's pet issues. Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, who led the committee in Kennedy's absence, said the bill is the first of several proposals "to grapple with the issue that has defied resolution through seven presidents and many Congresses since the 1940s."
It is also one of President Obama's top legislative goals, and the bill that cleared Kennedy's committee closely tracks the framework Obama has outlined for a health care bill. It includes a government-run health insurance program that would compete with private insurers, requires companies with more than 25 employees to provide medical coverage for their workers and sets up an "exchange" that would let people choose among a variety of insurance options.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported it would cost $615 billion over 10 years, far less than estimates for other legislation. But the estimate did not include the cost of a proposed expansion of the federally funded Medicaid system for low-income families, which could add several hundred billion dollars to the overall tab.

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Sen. Mike Enzi, the health committee's top Republican, called the measure "a prescription for failure." He said the real cost would be about $1 trillion, and the measure would drive up cost and ration health care on lines similar to Britain.
Under the British health care system, "The older you are, the longer you have to wait to see a doctor, the longer you have to wait for tests, the longer you have to wait to get treatment," said Enzi, of Wyoming. "The people die. That's not the system we'll buy in America."
Obama and top congressional Democrats met Monday to discuss how to pay for a sweeping health care overhaul. Meanwhile, the Senate Finance Committee is working on another health care bill, and Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives released their own proposal Tuesday.
In a Rose Garden appearance after Wednesday's vote, Obama said the proposals "will offer stability and security to Americans who have coverage today, and affordable options for Americans who don't."
"This progress should make us hopeful, but it shouldn't make us complacent," he said. "It should instead provide the urgency for both the House and the Senate to finish their critical work on health reform before the August recess."

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