I tried asking this question in the GD thread about illegal immigrants possibly getting coverage under healthcare reform. In fact, I asked twice and never got an answer. I tried to google it, but I didn’t find specific facts.
I would really like to know if there are any or a few or a lot of illegals who are getting Medicare. If someone is here illegally and they are working (I guess using a fake social security number), then they are paying into social security and medicare. I have heard people say that, in these cases, they are paying in but will not be able to collect. Is this true? What kind of safeguards are in place to prevent this?
The reason I’m asking about Medicare instead of Medicaid is that it seems to be closer to the set up there will be if (big fat “if”) the healthcare reform includes a public option.
Hard to find info on this. This link mentions only four states require proof of citizenship to access Medicaid (I know you asked about Medicare but it did not mention that). Oregon feels illegal immigrants cost the state about 1% of their total Medicaid payouts.
On the flip side this New York Times article notes that illegal immigrants actually pay more into the system than they ever take out. Their pay gets taxed by their employer automatically but those are funds they will never get back as they cannot receive the benefits down the road.
(From NYT link above…note they mention SS here but they also note Medicare payments although do not detail how that moneys out)
In order to qualify for Medicare Part A (and therefore, Part B), you have to be receiving Social Security retirement benefits. In order to receive SS retirement, you have to provide proof of citizenship or legal residency.
I suppose an illegal immigrant could steal somebody’s identity and draw their Medicare benefits, but it would be extremely difficult.
ETA: Medicare is administered by the federal government, not the states, so eligibility verification is standardized.
Don’t forget there are lots of citizens and legal immigrants who pay into the system and die long before they get anything out of it. Social Security isn’t fair to them either.
I would say the system works well enough to prevent collecting but there are always people who cheat the system whether it’s SS or SSI or Welfare or any kind of government program
Yes, that’s true. There are no safeguards in place to prevent this (though employers can verify SSNs if they want to), but why would you want safeguards? Illegal immigrants are effectively subsidizing Social Security and Medicare (and their state budgets, in states with income tax), and the federal government has no incentive to stop them from doing so.
This is a good reason why the fed is always making transfer payments to the states- states bear the costs of illegal immigration (education, write-offs for ER visits for the uninsured, extra roads, utilities, and so on) but the federal government reaps the benefits, for the most part.
I feel that I have to correct the statements made in this post. Receiving SS retirement benefits is one way to qualify for Medicare, but is not the only way. For example, I worked for the Federal gov’t (Social Security, actually) for 27 years. None of my employment was covered under SS. However, at some point Medicare taxes were withheld from my pay. I will qualify for Medicare when I reach age 65, but won’t qualify for SS retirement.
Not true. To qualify for SS retirement you need to:
Meet the age requirement (at least age 62),
Meet the earnings requirement (essentially, 10 years of work that was covered under SS), and
Apply for benefits.
There are no citizenship or residency requirements. An illegal immigrant would have trouble meeting the earnings requirement because the employer would have reported any earnings under an invalid SS number.
I believe that SS eligibility is only necessary to receive Medicare Part A for free. It can be available to lawful aliens for the payment of a premium. That’s still supposed to exclude undocumented immigrants, but I guess it might be easier to falsify.
I left out the part about working for the Federal Government since in nearly all cases you cannot work for the feds unless you are a citizen or permanent resident. If you can meet the federal employment eligibility requirements, obviously you can meet the criteria for Social Security retirement/Medicare eligibility.
I’m 65 this year, and had to sign up for Medicare part A. You do this three months before your 65th birthday. I still work. I don’t receive SS benefits. I’m waiting until I’m 66, when I can draw full benefit. My point is that they wouldn’t have to “be receiving SS retirement benefits.” This may have been said by a poster before me.
And what I’m saying is that it is my understanding that a lawful alien over 65 who has never paid into the SS system, and therefore is not (and will never be) eligible to receive any SS retirement benefits, can nonetheless receive Medicare Part A by paying a premium. He or she just cannot get it for free. I’m respectfully disagreeing with the bolded part of RNATB’s comment below. I can try to dig up a cite later, but this is a bit of a hijack anyway, so maybe I’ll just let it go.
Here’s a link to a Social Security page that explains the requirements for Medicare. No mention of citizenship or residency. However, other types of benefits (such as SSI) do have such requirements. SSA probably suggests that you have these proofs on hand in case you might qualify for benefits that do have citizenship or residency requirements.
I get what you’re saying, but I’m not asking because I have an opinion on illegal immigrants receiving SS benefits, specifically (I think just about everything sucks about being an illegal immigrant, not the least of which is paying into a system from which you can never collect. And, jeez, don’t most of these guys work hard enough without also subsidizing the fed? [These are jokes and are not meant to lead to a debate.])
I was asking because of the brew hardie har* over illegal immigrants getting benefits under healthcare reform if there is a public option. It seems to me that it is going to require a SS number to participate in a public option, if one chooses to. I’m guessing the premiums will be collected and coverage administrated based on a SS number for each recipient (and if not the insurance itself, then at least any credits paid to subsidize premium payments will likely be paid via a SS number, just as tax credits are). That’s why I was asking about Medicare specifically. If a SS number is required to collect payments or to pay into a system with any hope of receiving benefits from that system, it seems to me that a valid SS number would be needed. In other words, I’m guessing that the adminstration of a public option would be along the same lines as how Medicare is handled. Therefore, if there are nots tons o’ illegals getting Medicare already, then it seems unlikely that illegals will find a way around the system being currently proposed.
In other words, it seems like everyone is gettin’ all fired up over a pretty unlikely scenario. Although, as always, I could be wrong.
Thanks for the link. Again, it doesn’t mention residency/citizenship specifically, but what I am asking is if it is possible to get Medicare without a valid SS number, since all my Medicare stuff is keyed to my number (which is “7”, so none of y’all use that one if you’re gonna fake it!).
Well, that’s just the point- there is no incentive for the IRS or anyone else to verify SSNs which are used to pay into the system, because if they turn out to be fake, they’re not going to return the money anyway.
There is certainly an incentive for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) to verify whether an SSN being used to pay out is real, although as noted above the states apparently don’t worry about this too much vis-a-vis Medicaid administration.
An opinion apparently not shared by the illegals, who for the most part showed up voluntarily.
And one other aside…WE are the Fed. It’s us. It’s not a pot of (borrowed) money that showed up on its own into which illegal aliens are coerced into contributing. It’s sort of all part of the deal when you sneak in illegally, and for the most part you are free to return to someone else’s system.
Anyway, back to the point about illegals getting Medicare…since it’s illegal, it doesn’t seem likely those getting by with something illegal are reporting themselves. Any estimates would be an estimate.
Is that a good proxy for what will happen with healthcare? Well it depends on how rigorously the healthcare insurance purchasers are screened. If it’s as rigorous as the screen for a SSN, then I don’t think there will be very much fraud. As now, hospitals will simply continue to distribute the healthcare costs of free care among those who do pay. If, on the other hand, the screen is something fairly rudimentary such as “Fill out this form stating you are eligible” then a great number of illegals will be paying insurance and getting covered. I suspect this is the intention of those promoting the current proposal: Provide a mechanism by which everyone can get insurance and provide a mechanism by which the poorer segment can have subsidized premiums. Put language in the law that makes it illegal for non-citizens to get coverage (because this will help get the bill passed), but allow practical non-enforcement so that such provisions are honored in the breach.
In general this seems like a reasonable approach to me, although it does speak to the usual farce of government, I suppose.
As I mentioned in that other post, it’s all about what actually happens, not about what the law is. If those two correlated more accurately, we wouldn’t have so many illegal aliens in the first place.
Just to clarify, the line I wrote right after what you quoted me as saying was:
Sorry that I expressed it poorly enough that it was taken to be any indication of my genuine opinions. (For what it’s worth, I have not yet had a chance to otherwise educate myself on immigration issues, so I have too little knowlege of the issues involved to form any kind of real opinion. I just started following politics last year, and it’s complicated.)
Since I orginally posted, I’ve done a bit more research. It does seem highly unlikely that anyone here unlawfully is able to have their medical services paid by Medicare. I just haven’t figured out a way someone could do it. So, if the public option system is set up like Medicare, it does not appear that it will be accessible to illegal immigrants.
What I’ve read about Medicaid is different. Apparently, federal funds for Medicaid is given to the states, and each state administers Medicaid for their own system. I did find one study (which of course I can’t find now in order to link to it. Sorry) in which investigations were conducted in nine states, specifically looking for illegal aliens who were unlawfully receiving Medicare benefits. One state mentioned had none, another state had 14 or so, and the remaining states had less than 14 (if my memory serves). So, it seems to be pretty rare even with Medicaid.
As an interesting aside, the study concluded by comparing the money spent for the investigations compared to the money saved on Medicaid as a result of discovering the fraudulent recipients. For every $100 spent investigating, the government saves 14 cents.
I will try to find that study again so I can link to it instead of relying on my unreliable memory.
All in all the outrage over the possibility of a legal benefiting from healthcare reform seems like another tempest in a teapot.
[These are jokes and are not meant to lead to a debate.])