Political Quotes

“Republicans have attacked a provision in the CHAMP Act that would allow states flexibility in how they verify the citizenship of the American children applying for or renewing coverage under Medicaid, claiming that language in the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act (DRA) that imposed harsher citizenship verification requirements on state Medicaid programs is the only barrier protecting taxpayer dollars from being spent on healthcare for illegal immigrants. Empirical evidence from the first nine months of the implementation of this rule demonstrates, in fact, that the new requirements have denied tens of thousands of American children access to health care. In my own state of Virginia, this draconian requirement has adversely affected thousands of U.S. citizen children, children who are among the most medically vulnerable in the state. In the first nine months of implementation, there was a net decline of more than 11,000 children enrolled in Medicaid. Had growth in enrollment continued at the same rate it had during the previous 2 years, the state would have seen a net increase of 9,000 poor children, suggesting that overall, at least 20,000 have been denied access to health coverage.”