Hillarycare for Illegals

By Robert Goldberg-New York Post

November 16, 2007 -- IF you thought Hillary Clinton had trouble making up her mind about drivers licenses for illegal aliens, wait until someone tries to pin her down about health care for illegals.

She fumbled for days after being asked about Gov. Spitzer's now-aborted plan to give licenses to illegals. But the New York governor is pushing ahead on giving free health care to the same folks. Washington recently told Spitzer that it wouldn't pay for chemotherapy for illegals under a Medicaid "emergency" program. That program was created in 1996 at President Bill Clinton's insistence to provide "temporary" coverage to illegals, who'd been barred from Medicaid the year before. In the years since, it's become a de facto entitlement for illegals - who in some states get the same benefits as everyone else on Medicaid (except for organ transplants). As a result, "emergency" Medicaid spending has ballooned across the country.

When the Bush administration told Spitzer that emergency Medicaid wasn't meant to cover chemotherapy, the gov decided that New York taxpayers (many of whom have to cover the cost of their own cancer drugs, due to inadequate private insurance) would foot the bill. Spitzer says the cancer care will "only" cost $10 million. Maybe so - until more people find out it's free.

Over to Hillary: Asked in September if the senator's new health plan would pay the tab for illegals, senior Clinton policy adviser Laurie Rubiner said, "That's one we're going to have to think through a little bit . . . We have not dealt with every single detail with this plan." This is one detail Clinton had better deal with quickly. No one wants to see suffering people denied health care. Illegal immigrants are more than welcome to pay out of pocket for health care - and many do. Many also buy private insurance - or at least did until it became public policy to give health care away for free as a reward for being here illegally.

But lots of voters will say states shouldn't provide free cancer care to people who are in this country illegally, when many Americans can't get their private health plans to pay for the same drugs. And Clinton has clearly supported spending taxpayer dollars on free health care for illegals in the past - and not just a decade ago, when Bill was pushing for the "emergency" program. Despite what the senator's adviser says, she has thought through this issue. Hillary voted to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program to cover illegals and had counted on that money to bring down the cost of her own health care plan. And if "universal health coverage" is her goal, then supporting the Spitzer chemo handout is a slam-dunk. After all, illegals make up 9 million of the 45 million "Americans" she typically notes as lacking health coverage.

To be fair, no presidential candidate has so far taken on the issue of how to deal with health-care coverage for illegals. But it's only fair that Clinton go first: Her home-state governor and political ally is at the center of the debate. And health care is Clinton's signature issue, the one policy area that she claims the most experience and leadership. She has had plenty of time to "think." How she responds will tell us a lot about her health-care plan and her candidacy.