[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 163 (Saturday, December 17, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2561]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 OPPOSING SECTION 3145 OF THE RECONCILIATION SPENDING CUTS CONFERENCE 
                           REPORT (H.R. 4241)

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN

                         of the virgin islands

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, December 15, 2005

  Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call attention to 
Section 3145 of H.R. 4241, the proposed Reconciliation Spending Cuts 
Conference Report, and to express my unequivocal opposition to that 
provision and the base bill. That section will just provide added cause 
to reject the report, because it would require everyone--everyone--
applying for Medicaid to produce a birth certificate or passport to 
prove citizenship.
  Supporters of this provision talk a good game. And, on the surface, 
their rationale seems plausible and reasonable. They claim that Section 
3145 will save a great deal of money by restricting undocumented 
residents from lying about their citizenship and falsely obtaining 
Medicaid services. However, Mr. Speaker, proponents of Section 3145 do 
not discuss is a comprehensive study by the Department of Health and 
Human Services, Office of the Inspector General. This July 2005 study 
found no compelling evidence that illegal residents were lying about 
their citizenship status in order to qualify for Medicaid.
  So it is nothing more than another barely veiled attack on 
immigrants--our fellow human beings--and it would also have adverse 
impacts on other American citizens as well.
  For many of us here, the idea of obtaining a passport or a copy of a 
birth certificate does not sound difficult. However, for many 
Americans--particularly low-income Americans in rural communities, low-
income racial and ethnic minorities and elderly Americans--getting a 
passport or a copy of a birth certificate is very difficult and 
sometimes even impossible. Even the cost is a barrier for some.
  But further complicating the process for some Americans, particularly 
those who are low-income, racial and ethnic minorities and/or born in 
rural areas, is the fact that when they were born, their families may 
not have had access to hospitals--they may not be able to get birth 
certificates and therefore passports simply because they were born at 
home.
  As you know, during much of the last century, many hospitals and 
health clinics--especially in the south and in areas entrenched in 
segregation and discrimination--would not admit minorities, especially 
African Americans. This long history of discrimination created barriers 
to health care access that continue to affect the health and health 
care of racial and ethnic minorities today. It is the same 
discrimination that now still makes it difficult for so many low-income 
African Americans senior--and other seniors of color--to obtain the 
required documentation they would need under this provision to obtain 
Medicaid services. Mr. Speaker, let's not be a part of allowing 
discrimination to create additional barriers to health care for 
immigrants or other Americans of color.
  Further, were section 3145 to pass, it will be states and counties 
who will determine how to enforce it and who to ask for the additional 
documentation.
  My concern is that this provision will put low-income Americans at 
the mercy of individuals whose assumptions about their status put them 
at great risk for discrimination. It would attack everyone's civil 
liberties.
  Mr. Speaker, Section 3145 is based on a completely false and 
slanderous assumption about immigrants in this country, and it is 
nothing more than another anti-immigrant provision among the many 
egregious ones that are being debated on the floor today.
  There are repercussions for health in general. If enacted this 
provision would also have extraordinarily detrimental effects on the 
health and health care of many American citizens, it will increase the 
already unacceptably high numbers of uninsured Americans, and 
consequently, it will exacerbate health disparities--both racial and 
ethnic, and rural--as well as worsen the health and well being of many 
American citizens.
  In our focus on section 3145, we don't want anyone to get the wrong 
impression that this is one bad provision in an otherwise good bill. 
Nothing could be further from fact. What it does is just make a 
conference report that is shaping up to be a terrible bill already, 
even worse.
  Just today I received a letter from the national Council of Churches 
of Christ in the USA. It read in part:
  ``The role of government is to protect its people and work for the 
common good. This is not the time for the budget reconciliation process 
to create greater hardships for those who are already experiencing 
great suffering. To do so is not only unjust; it is a sin. It violates 
all the fundamental Christian principles of loving thy neighbor, caring 
for the poor, and showing mercy. As religious leaders, this violation 
is unacceptable to us.''
  This is a reference to the entire budget reconciliation bill, and 
whether one is Baptist, Catholic, Jew or Moslem the words ring true.
  It is rotten to the core, and this country, which pledges to be one 
``under God'', should not let the Immigration/Border Security Bill or 
any part of the inhumane budget reconciliation or spending cut bill as 
it is now written become the law of this land.

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