Thursday, October 18, 2007

The real truth about SCHIP

This morning, I received this important email from Ginny Brown-Waite's Washington office. This information was provided by Charlie Keller, Communications Director for our Congresswoman.
Please see the attached Letter to the Editor of the Palm Beach Post about the SCHIP re authorization legislation currently being debated in Congress. This letter, signed by Florida Representatives Ginny Brown-Waite, Tom Feeney and Jeff Miller, is in direct response to the inaccurate editorial that appeared in today’s Palm Beach Post.

For background, please see the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office
report detailing the costs to American taxpayers for allowing illegal immigrants access to SCHIP benefits intended for low-income children. If you look at page 2 of the CBO report, line 211 is the $3.7 billion for illegal immigrants that come from federal funds. In order for states to implement the SCHIP programs, however, they are required to put up front state matching money to receive the federal funds. So if you do the math, you come up with a required $2.8 billion state amount that goes to illegal immigrants. That totals $6.5 billion for illegal immigrants, funds that come at the expense of low-income American children. The Social Security Administration has also sent a letter to Ways and Means Ranking Member Jim McCrery explaining that Social Security numbers are not adequate to verify the citizenship status of SCHIP applicants.

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