“I know for a fact (as a person who has applied for and been on medicaid) that they EXPLICITLY say no proof of citizenship is required to obtain benefits for children.”

Perhaps there should be.  Perhaps we should place the children of illegal aliens (and tourists, and those on student and other temporary visas) in the same category as the children of foreign diplomats, who are not citizens of the USA regardless of their place of birth.  This can be done with only a legislative change.  Then if they come to us for benefits, we just pack them up and send them home.

“Also, quit playing the “someone who don’t deserve it might get a dose” canard by bringing up “illegals” because that is another red herring.”

Why is it a red herring?  Social services provided to illegals via their “anchor baby” children is already an enormous drain on the USA; the social service costs of many of these families is not only more than their tax payments, it’s more than their gross wages!  If I’m reading section 242 of HR3200 correctly (pp. 132-3), enrollment of an anchor baby allows an entire family, illegal alien parents included, to qualify for “afforability credits” (see (2), “TREATMENT”, p. 133).  Note that being an illegal alien is not a disqualifier!

What does this mean to you?  Aside from the escalating transfer payments to people who have no business being here in the first place, it means that these illegals go into the queue for services from the same pool of primary care physicians who are already in very short supply (because their services are under-compensated).  How would you like to wait longer and get less because our elites want their cheap, pliant labor?  (Note that illegal Brazilians are now some 30% of the workforce on Martha’s Vineyard, where the Obamas just vacationed.  The WH just said it isn’t going to rock that boat… again.)

That being said, whether or not they are on health insurance, which might encourage preventative care and matainance of long-term health conditions, they are still able to receive treatment in any hospital’s emergency room. Their health issues will be our financial responsibility whether we allow them to benefit from government insurance or not. I would argue that it is our responsibility as humans and free citizens of an incredibly idealistic country to acknowledge that burden and accept it as a part of our heritage.

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

We are a country built on the backs of immigrants, legal and illegal, and it is our duty to promote their right to life and health as much as we would have promoted it for our own grandparents, great-grandparents, and ancestors.

The whole thing boils down to one thing. The big insurance companies don’t want to be told what to do.

They talk about rationed care, this is a practice already being done by the insurance companies.

The cost of means-tested benefits for low-skilled immigrants is estimated to be $1.5 trillion over 10 years.

There’s also the fact that the Dems are trying to cram this thing through really fast.  They may think that they have to do it fast if they’re going to do it at all, but is that an excuse?  Maybe a stopgap measure like paying for primary care for those who’ve lost their jobs needs to be a priority, but anything so far-reaching as a wholesale overhaul of the system cannot help but benefit from a much more measured approach.