Health Care Debate Revives Immigration Battle

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: NYT

Republicans argue that some of the voters’ concerns are justified because, they say, the proposals before Congress do not spell out procedures to verify the citizenship of those who would receive health coverage.

After testing their ideas with voters during the recess, Republicans said they would press for verification measures when the health care debate picks up again in Washington.

“The language is there, but without the verification you can’t frankly believe it is serious,” said Representative Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas, who added that concerns about illegal immigrants were clearly on the minds of citizens he met in his district. Mr. Smith said Democrats “intentionally left gaping loopholes” in the proposals that illegal immigrants could step through.

Broad explanations, not intricate detail, were what voters in Georgia were looking for in recent meetings with Representative Phil Gingrey, a Republican who was a practicing physician in the state for 26 years. Mr. Gingrey said there had been an influx of illegal immigrants in his district in the last decade.

“A lot of their kids are in the school system,” Mr. Gingrey said in a telephone interview. “They get a free public education without any question. My constituents don’t want the same thing to happen with regard to health care.”



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/health/policy/06immighealth.html