More chinks in current S-CHIP bill or H.R. 3963.

A new study by the Heritage Foundation's Robert Rector demonstrates how the new S-CHIP bill increases illegal immigrants access to Medicaid and undermines the Welfare Reform Act. Michelle Malkin takes the finding a step further,and I agree, that even though the bill contains a category (Title VI Section 605) entitled, " No Federal Funding for Illegal Aliens," there's no provision written into the bill to check the citizenship status of applicants for the S-CHIP program. Essentially, Section 605 is a red herring the Democrats can point to and say the bill doesn't give benefits to illegal aliens. Nevermind that the rest of the bill relaxes identification procedures for S-CHIP Rector's analysis points out that HR 3963:

1. weakens the evidentiary and document standards governing entry into the Medicaid program, thereby making it easier for illegal immigrants to fraudulently obtain benefits; and
2. overturns the limitations on immigrant use of Medicaid enacted in the 1996 welfare reform law by gutting the administrative procedures used to determine immigrant eligibility, thereby readily permitting immigrants to receive benefits for which they remain legally ineligible.

Remember that under current law, illegal immigrants are eligible for:

• emergency medical services funded through the Medicaid program but are not eligible for normal benefits through Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP).
• In addition, according to the provisions of the 1996 welfare reform law, legal immigrants are not eligible for normal Medicaid and S-CHIP benefits for the first five years they reside in the United States.

SCHIP Fun. "You know, for kids."
(bonus points if anyone can tell what Coen Bros. movie that line came from) Hat tip to HOT AIR.


This SCHIP never ends. Ridiculously apparent item of the day= a children's health bill dependent on an increase in tobacco use. Only our Congress. More people smoking = more people needing medical care. What could go wrong? The Heritage Foundation has a list of problems associated with making this bill dependent on smokers. The most obvious is that the Surgeon's General have been trying to get people to quit smoking since 1960. The others are;

• tobacco tax disproportionately burdens low-income Americans, lacks long-term stability, and ultimately results in significant shifting of health care costs onto others.
• With the number of smokers already declining, a tobacco tax would further reduce the number of smokers, thereby eroding the funding source.
• To produce the revenues that Congress needs to fund SCHIP expansion through such a tax would require 22.4 million new smokers by 2017.

Check out the Heritage charts, they are really cool.