Fact is, illegal immigrants are in 'health care purgatory'

So Joe Wilson shouts crudely, "You Lie," at the president from the House floor. What's the truth about illegal immigrants and health care?

Karen E. Crummy of the Denver Post, takes a look at the language of the House bill, and determines that while illegal immigrants are not exempt from the requirements to buy insurances and not prohibited from enrolling in the "Health Insurance Exchange," which offers access to private plans and a public option (should it ever come to pass) they must be in the country lawfully to receive subsidies based on income. That's according to research by the the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan arm of Congress.

Additionally, Leighton Ku, a health policy analyst and professor at George Washington University, said that because the bill ties subsidies to substantiated income, there already exists a good method to weed out fraud through tax returns. Those require Social Security numbers, which illegal immigrants are barred from obtaining.

While some people - both noncitizens and citizens - may try to use false Social Security numbers, the numbers are likely small, Ku said.

Ku points out that while there is always some fraud, social security numbers are a "well-established way to determine whether someone is a citizen in this country."

Southern Methodist University Law School Prof Nathan Cortez, in his The Health Care Blog, also analyzes the issue, writing that both the House and Senate bills state "in pretty clear language" that they don't cover illegal immigrants. The bills would, however, allow illegals to purchase coverage without subsidy. And let's hope that even Joe Wilson wouldn't have a quarrel with that.

Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act

Unfortunately, most immigrants are ineligible for means-tested public insurance programs like Medicaid. This regulatory framework has led to "medical repatriation," in which hospitals effectively deport immigrant patients to unload expensive long-term care burdens.