Court Sides With Immigrants on Medicaid

[KathleenElsie]

I have said over and over that legal immigrants should be entitled to health, education and other benefits that citizens are entitled to. If they qualify then they should be allowed to get them. If they don’t qualify due to income or other reasons that would disqualify a citizen then so be it.

The Court of Appeals decision means the benefits will continue while the courts decide whether the cutoff violated Maryland’s constitution.

IMHO it is the illegals that should be denied all benefits except emergency care not those that have followed the law tp get here.

news.aol.com/health/story/_a/court-sides-with-immigrants-on-medicaid/n20061012194909990018?cid=474

Court Sides With Immigrants on Medicaid
By KRISTEN WYATT
AP

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - Maryland may not cut off Medicaid benefits to needy pregnant women and children who are legal immigrants until the constitutionality of the move is tested in the courts, the state’s highest court ruled Thursday. The court unanimously upheld an injunction blocking the state from cutting benefits to almost 3,000 recipients, all legal immigrants who have been in the U.S. for less than five years. …

Maryland had begun paying for the benefits for pregnant women and children with state funds when the federal government cut off federal Medicaid money for recent immigrants in 1996. After they are in the country for five years, legal immigrants are covered under the federal Medicaid program.

State lawyers argued that Maryland was free to drop the coverage to save money last year since it wasn’t required by the federal government. But Judge Glenn T. Harrell Jr., writing for five of the seven judges, said that the state “failed to justify” the decision to cut the money. The opinion also said that immigrants were likely to win their case, justifying an injunction barring the cut for now.

I do believe it is in the best interest of the USA to check the health status of potential immigrants. I know they did this in the future.

 

[jc-servant]

Maryland was providing medical benefits to recent legal immigrants without any obligation to do so. The federal Medicaid program already had rules which prevented someone from immigrating and immediately becoming a burden on our society by drawing welfare benefits (including Medicaid). Now that Maryland wants to stop voluntarily providing benefits to which there was no “entitlement” they are being sued. This situation is sucking up taxpayers money to defend the lawsuit in addition to the thousands in benefits that will have to be paid while the injunction is in place.

There is something seriously wrong with this situation! The state cannot deny emergency medical treatment to anyone so that is not the issue. Should Maryland have to run a deficit and possibly cut other needed programs because it cannot afford to continue a voluntary program? They should be commended for having ever provided coverage that was not required. I think it is like a charity sueing an individual who decides that he/she cannot make the usual voluntary donation this year because of budget constraints.

 

[Ituyu]

Maryland was providing medical benefits to recent legal immigrants without any obligation to do so. The federal Medicaid program already had rules which prevented someone from immigrating and immediately becoming a burden on our society by drawing welfare benefits (including Medicaid). Now that Maryland wants to stop voluntarily providing benefits to which there was no “entitlement” they are being sued. This situation is sucking up taxpayers money to defend the lawsuit in addition to the thousands in benefits that will have to be paid while the injunction is in place.

There is something seriously wrong with this situation! The state cannot deny emergency medical treatment to anyone so that is not the issue. Should Maryland have to run a deficit and possibly cut other needed programs because it cannot afford to continue a voluntary program? They should be commended for having ever provided coverage that was not required. I think it is like a charity sueing an individual who decides that he/she cannot make the usual voluntary donation this year because of budget constraints.

The problem is that we’re talking about the well-being of children, American citizen children. What is more important than our children? I don’t see how that is voluntary. For what ever reason the judge thinks that the women will prevail in a challenge.

 

[jc-servant]

The problem is that we’re talking about the well-being of children, American citizen children. What is more important than our children? I don’t see how that is voluntary. For what ever reason the judge thinks that the women will prevail in a challenge.

I have no problem with providing care for women and children when funds are available. I don’t see in this article where they are already citizens. It appeared that they were talking about recent immigrants who are merely legal residents.

The problem is that forcing the state to spend money on this particular program when they are having a budget deficit will mean that the courts rather than the elected legislators will decide where the tax dollars should go. If the state has a shortfall and a court order regarding this program, then they will begin cutting other programs, possibly social programs for the elderly or children in other areas. The first things to go in a budget crunch should be things that are voluntary because if they cannot fully fund the state’s share of programs with federal matching money, then everyone loses out on those programs when the feds cut their money.

 

[Ituyu]

I have no problem with providing care for women and children when funds are available. I don’t see in this article where they are already citizens. It appeared that they were talking about recent immigrants who are merely legal residents.

The problem is that forcing the state to spend money on this particular program when they are having a budget deficit will mean that the courts rather than the elected legislators will decide where the tax dollars should go. If the state has a shortfall and a court order regarding this program, then they will begin cutting other programs, possibly social programs for the elderly or children in other areas. The first things to go in a budget crunch should be things that are voluntary because if they cannot fully fund the state’s share of programs with federal matching money, then everyone loses out on those programs when the feds cut their money.

Well, as a Pro Life advocate, the baby is really the prime beneficiary of the medical care. The babies of course will be American citizens at birth. However, we make enough revenues from the “illegal” population to easily offset the costs related to these services:

“Starting in the late 1980’s, the Social Security Administration received a flood of W-2 earnings reports with incorrect - sometimes simply fictitious - Social Security numbers. It stashed them in what it calls the “earnings suspense file” in the hope that someday it would figure out whom they belonged to.
The file has been mushrooming ever since: $189 billion worth of wages ended up recorded in the suspense file over the 1990’s, two and a half times the amount of the 1980’s.
In the current decade, the file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year, generating $6 billion to $7 billion in Social Security tax revenue and about $1.5 billion in Medicare taxes.
In 2002 alone, the last year with figures released by the Social Security Administration, nine million W-2’s with incorrect Social Security numbers landed in the suspense file, accounting for $56 billion in earnings, or about 1.5 percent of total reported wages.
Social Security officials do not know what fraction of the suspense file corresponds to the earnings of illegal immigrants. But they suspect that the portion is significant.
“Our assumption is that about three-quarters of other-than-legal immigrants pay payroll taxes,” said Stephen C. Goss, Social Security’s chief actuary, using the agency’s term for illegal immigration.
Other researchers say illegal immigrants are the main contributors to the suspense file. “Illegal immigrants account for the vast majority of the suspense file,” said Nick Theodore, the director of the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “Especially its growth over the 1990’s, as more and more undocumented immigrants entered the work force.”
Using data from the Census Bureau’s current population survey, Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, an advocacy group in Washington that favors more limits on immigration, estimated that 3.8 million households headed by illegal immigrants generated $6.4 billion in Social Security taxes in 2002.
A comparative handful of former illegal immigrant workers who have obtained legal residence have been able to accredit their previous earnings to their new legal Social Security numbers. Mr. Camarota is among those opposed to granting a broad amnesty to illegal immigrants, arguing that, among other things, they might claim Social Security benefits and put further financial stress on the system.
The mismatched W-2’s fit like a glove on illegal immigrants’ known geographic distribution and the patchwork of jobs they typically hold. An audit found that more than half of the 100 employers filing the most earnings reports with false Social Security numbers from 1997 through 2001 came from just three states: California, Texas and Illinois. According to an analysis by the Government Accountability Office, about 17 percent of the businesses with inaccurate W-2’s were restaurants, 10 percent were construction companies and 7 percent were farm operations.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/b...0353600&partner=kmarx&pagewanted=all&position

 

[jc-servant]

I’m an attorney in the SSA and we cannot touch the money in that fund even within our agency. It most definitely is not available for a purely state-funded program such as the program in question in Maryland. Therefore, the problem remains with a
lack of funding at the state level and where or how to make cuts.

I don’t want children to suffer, but I also don’t want every person who does not get what they want to run for a court order to force things their way to the detriment of others. Babies born here as citizens would qualify for federally-funded programs, so the voluntary Maryland program does not apply to them. They qualify under regular Medicaid. As I previously stated, our elected legislature is charged with the responsibility for determining budgets for state government programs, just as Congress determines budgets at the federal level. It is not the job of the courts to force budget decisions in one area and then leave the legislature to clean up the mess by making cuts elsewhere.

 

[Texas_Roofer]

I read it and read it but where are these comments coming from?

First the court did not institute the laws nor the programs. The court rules an injunction is warranted until the case is full judicated. Is that a misread?

Second the issues appear to involve legal immigrates which are working toward, but not able to yet complete, citizenship. So the legal question is between the acceptance of that person into the U.S. and completion of the U.S. citizenship process what rights does the person have?

 

[jc-servant]

I read it and read it but where are these comments coming from?

First the court did not institute the laws nor the programs. The court rules an injunction is warranted until the case is full judicated. Is that a misread?

Second the issues appear to involve legal immigrates which are working toward, but not able to yet complete, citizenship. So the legal question is between the acceptance of that person into the U.S. and completion of the U.S. citizenship process what rights does the person have?

The point is that the elected state government decided that they needed to cut a state-funded program. The people benefiting from the program went to a judge to keep the state from cutting off the program. Yes, they are going to fight the state’s decision in further court proceedings. My point was the taxpayers elect a legislature which decides how to spend the state’s money when they plan a budget.

Since someone went to a judge to fight the legislature over a budget issue, a judge is now forcing the state to continue spending money on that particular program when there is not sufficient money to go around. With a court order in place to protect one program while they battle in court, they will have to cut something else or raise taxes or go into the hole on the budget. It takes the decision of what to cut out of the hands of the legislature and gives it to one judge for however long the court case drags on.

Regarding the second part of your question, legal residents do not have all of the same rights as full citizens. They are informed before getting that status that they will have to wait a period of years to become eligible for certain benefits such as the federally funded Medicaid discussed in this case. Maryland had decided on its own to pay out of state funds for benefits for this group that was not yet eligible for federal aid. Recently, they did not have enough money in the budget to continue to pay for the program and wanted to cut it.