RedState comments on a column by Ruth Marcus (a Washington Post columnist) in which she predicts some 'nasty attack ads' that we'll be seeing in the 2008 presidential race. You really should read the entire thing, but I'll do my best to summarize.
If passed into permanent law, the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) will remove federal prohibitions against illegal aliens receiving benefits, allow states to dish most of the cost onto the federal government, and encourage states to not enroll eligible children for a year and a half.
Ruth Marcus is pre-emptively trying to set up all attacks on this legislation as purely 'attack ads' for the presidential campaign. While defending this bad legislation, Marcus herself says that the documentation that would prevent these bad things from happening will be made optional. The Washington Post's own coverage says that the new 'children' eligible for the program include people up to 20 years old, illegal immigrants, and pregnant women.
RedState points out the unusual step taken by Dennis Smith, the Director of the Center for Medicaid and State Operations, to correct a columnist. Smith calls out Marcus, saying "unprecedented new eligibility rules would not only allow public benefits for illegal aliens but would provide incentives to states to open Medicaid and SCHIP to do so." Basic Medicaid protections that protect against fraud would be gutted; states would be allowed to turn over eligibility determinations to "express lane" agencies with little information; families could refuse to provide information to those agencies, and those agencies could also determine eligibility for benefits without even taking an application.
Smith continues, pointing out that "[S]tates currently have a large stake in preventing Medicaid fraud because they pay, on average, 43 percent of the cost of the program. But Medicaid will become a moneymaker for states if they can put enough people on the rolls of Medicaid and SCHIP." They could potentially reduce their stake to as little as 5 percent.
This is bad legislation, people! And this is the health care that the Democrats are fighting for.
There's my two cents.
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