At Los Angeles Times, "Medical help for illegal immigrants could haunt Mitt Romney":
The Massachusetts healthcare law that then-Gov. Mitt Romney signed in 2006 includes a program known as the Health Safety Net, which allows undocumented immigrants to get needed medical care along with others who lack insurance.Right.
Uninsured, poor immigrants can walk into a health clinic or hospital in the state and get publicly subsidized care at virtually no cost to them, regardless of their immigration status.
The program, widely supported in Massachusetts, drew little attention when Romney signed the trailblazing healthcare law. But now it could prove problematic for the Republican presidential hopeful, who has been attacking Texas Gov. Rick Perry for supporting educational aid for children of undocumented immigrants in Texas.
"We have to turn off the magnet of extraordinary government benefits," Romney said at the recent Fox News-Google debate in Florida.
Perry has defended the Texas program, saying it is better to educate young people, even if they are in the country illegally, to help them become productive members of society.
Similarly, supporters of the Massachusetts program note there are ultimately higher costs for denying care to sick patients regardless of their immigration status.
The Massachusetts program, which cost more than $400 million last year, paid for 1.1 million hospital and clinic visits. It's unclear how many undocumented patients benefited because the state does not record that data.
The Romney campaign referred questions to Tim Murphy, who served as Romney's state health and human services secretary. Murphy said the governor never intended the Health Safety Net to serve undocumented immigrants.
"Never intended." Just like Romney never intended to hire illegal immigrants, like the ones the Boston Globe reported on in 2006: "Illegal immigrants toiled for governor: Guatemalans say firm hired them." And here: "Lawn work at Romney's home still done by illegal immigrants."
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