Sharon Begley of Newsweek dissembles about healthcare for illegal aliens

Sharon Begley of Newsweek offers "The Five Biggest Lies in the Health Care Debate" (link), which contains a section discussing whether illegal aliens could receive healthcare under the House bill. Unlike FactCheck, she doesn't outright mislead and say they won't be able to get it, but she misleads nonetheless:

Illegal immigrants will get free health insurance.
The House bill doesn't give anyone free health care (though under a 1986 law illegals who can't pay do get free emergency care now, courtesy of all us premium paying customers or of hospitals that have to eat the cost). Will they be eligible for subsidies to buy health insurance? The House bill says that "individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States" will not be allowed to receive subsidies.

The claim that taxpayers will wind up subsidizing health insurance for illegal immigrants has its origins in the defeat of an amendment, offered in July by Republican Rep. Dean Heller of Nevada, to require those enrolling in a public plan or seeking subsidies to purchase private insurance to have their citizenship verified. Flecksoflife.com claimed on July 19 that "HC [health care] will be provided 2 all non US citizens, illegal or otherwise." Rep. Steve King of Iowa spread the claim in a USA Today op-ed on Aug. 20, calling the explicit prohibition on such coverage "functionally meaningless" absent mandatory citizenship checks, and it's now gone viral. Can we say that none of the estimated 11.9 million illegal immigrants will ever wangle insurance subsidies through identity fraud, pretending to be a citizen? You can't prove a negative, but experts say that Medicare—the closest thing to the proposals in the House bill—has no such problem.

1. In an article supposedly about lies, she's admitting the possibility that illegal aliens will be able to receive coverage. However, she's restricting it to the case of those pretending to be citizens. There may turn out to be cases where - as many government agencies like to say - they don't inquire about someone's status.

2. She doesn't mention the CRS report confirming that illegal aliens would be able to access benefits under the House bill. Google says her story was published two days ago, and the CRS report was made public at least four days ago.

3. She might have determined it on her own, but the reference to Flecksoflife.com was also made by FactCheck on August 28; see this for the details. How much of her other coverage (if any) originated at the less-than-credible FactCheck?

4. It's a strawman to hang an argument on the use of "free" in the "myth".

Mon, 08/31/2009 - 13:14 · · Importance: 4