BILLS AFFECTING IMMIGRANT ELIGIBILITY FOR HEALTH, NUTRITION BENEFITS STILL ON TABLE
Immigrants' Rights Update, Vol. 14, No. 7, Nov. 28, 2000

With the election season's end, Congress has reconvened in the nation's capital to take up a handful of legislative proposals it left undecided before members returned to their home districts to campaign.  Among such proposals are measures affecting immigrants' eligibility for health care and nutrition benefits.

The fate of the Immigrant Children's Health Improvement Act (ICHIA) remains tied to that of several much larger pieces of legislation.  ICHIA would give states the option to provide federal Medicaid and State Child Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) benefits to lawfully residing children and pregnant women.  Advocates have been working for months to incorporate ICHIA into a Medicare provider bill, H.R. 5543, which principally reverses reimbursement cuts made to hospitals and other providers in the late 1990s to help balance the budget.

ICHIA has been included in some versions of H.R. 5543, but it was left out of the version that was recently brought to the floor as part of an even larger package called the Small Business, Health, Tax, and Minimum Wage Act (H.R. 2614).  H.R. 2614, without ICHIA, has now passed the House but has not yet to come to a vote in the Senate.  H.R. 2614 will cost the treasury more than $250 billion over 10 years, mostly for tax cuts.

On Nov. 3, 2000, more than 80 health consumer, disability rights, and immigrants' rights advocacy organizations sent a letter asking Congress to put ICHIA and other provisions that benefit low-income Medicaid beneficiaries back into H.R. 2614.  The letter points out that the version of H.R. 5543/H.R. 2614 that does not contain ICHIA includes a change in Medicaid rules that will reduce federal Medicaid costs by more than $21 billion dollars over five years, yet fails to return even a fraction of this money to the Medicaid program or its low-income beneficiaries.  In contrast, HMOs would be handsomely rewarded with unjustified price increases totaling more than $34 billion over ten years.

The president has vowed to veto H.R. 2614 if it is not amended to include ICHIA and a number of other health coverage improvements.  The impact of this veto threat will depend, in part, on whether members hear from their constituents on the issue in these final days before adjournment.

Restoration of immigrants' eligibility for food stamps is also on the agenda for the "lame duck" session to which Congress will return on the week of December 4, 2000.  Advocates hope that one of the remaining appropriations bills can be amended to include significant restorations.