Yesterday, I commented on a New York Times article about how new restrictions to require ID in order to get Medicaid may hurt people other than illegal immigrants.

Well, check out this paragraph from Slate: “The NYT tries to justify the arbitrary timing of its Medicaid lead by pegging it to the immigration debate. The story, however, focuses on poor people who are in the country legally but may be denied benefits because they lack documentation. Those who may lose their medical coverage include African Americans and Native Americans who never received birth certificates and don’t have passports, as well as elderly patients who may not understand the new requirement. After letting your outrage brew for 22 paragraphs, the Times mentions that the government is working on a policy to accommodate the needs of these groups.”

The New York Times’s brouhaha over this Medicaid policy may actually be a non-story. The bill doesn’t go into effect until July 1st and so I don’t know if this will even be an issue by then.

Anyway, thinking about it some more, I’m still not sure what to think. It all depends on how they actually verify citizenship. If kids grab fake IDs all the time, I’m sure an illegal immigrant can grab one. Furthermore, if these illegal immigrants are “living in the shadows,” how are they getting Medicaid? I’d like to see some data on the impact of illegal immigration on Medicaid. Of course, I’m still of the mind that if we enforced our laws in the first place, we wouldn’t have this problem.