Is there any way we can blame this on Bush? This would not have been brought to light if freshman Republican representative Lyons had not pressed the issue. He started last May and it only took five months to get an answer. In some parts of the state the 2010 elections did make a difference.
peterR
enjoy the read... Thank you LA.....(law angel)
FINALLY: Rep. James J. Lyons Jr. staged a sit-in in the House chambers two weeks ago to get the Patrick administration to release details on what the state’s free health care to illegal aliens cost taxpayers last year.
Pol gets action!
Gets Patrick to admit high cost of illegals’ health care
By Gary J. Remal
A dogged freshman lawmaker who refused to budge from the House chambers earlier this month until the Patrick administration came clean on how much taxpayers coughed up last year for free health care to illegal aliens finally got his answer yesterday: a whopping $93 million.“I didn’t think it would take as much work as it did to answer such a simple question about how our tax dollars are spent,” state Rep. James J. Lyons Jr. told the Herald yesterday.
“My whole goal was to get the information and open the process up. (MassHealth spending) is a third of the state budget. That was what we highlighted to (Health and Human Services) Secretary (JudyAnn) Bigby.”The 58-year-old Andover Republican — who bucked Beacon Hill by holding a sit-in in the House chambers two weeks ago — pried the shocking report from state officials. It showed that nearly 55,000 illegal immigrants received more than $93 million in MassHealth benefits for emergency medical services last year.
Watchdogs predicted that the report is likely to inspire deeper questions about the state’s lavish spending on health care for illegals. The staggering medical bill for poor and jobless residents was supposed to level off under the Bay State’s landmark universal health insurance plan enacted five years ago under the aegis of then-Gov. Mitt Romney.
“It is sad that Rep. Lyons was forced to hold up business on Beacon Hill to get basic information that should be part of the yearly budget process,” said Joshua Archambault, director of health-care policy at the conservative Pioneer Institute in Boston.
“This issue deserves further investigation. Simply put, the administration has failed to set up robust program integrity features, many of which were part of the health-care reform law passed five years ago,” Archambault said.
However, another state budget watchdog said the report — which showed the state doled out more than $9.5 billion to more than a million low-income families — doesn’t reveal how much the bill for illegals has increased since the system was overhauled in 2006.
“It would be interesting to know what it was in 2005 or ’06,” said David G. Tuerck of Suffolk University’s Beacon Hill Institute. “It’s too bad it took forever to get this information from these people.”
Lyons began pushing the Patrick administration for a full accounting of all state spending on illegal immigrants last May.
In her letter, Bigby apologized to Lyons for his long wait. Her spokeswoman explained that it took time to get “a thorough and accurate” accounting of the spending.
Lyons took a gracious stance. “I think this opens the lines of communication with the administration, and this administration recognizes that openness and transparency are something we are very serous about. This is a good first step,” he said.
“But we started this process in May, and here we are in October, so hopefully it will be a little quicker than this next time.”
“This issue deserves further investigation. Simply put, the administration has failed to set up robust program integrity features, many of which were part of the health-care reform law passed five years ago,” Archambault said.
However, another state budget watchdog said the report — which showed the state doled out more than $9.5 billion to more than a million low-income families — doesn’t reveal how much the bill for illegals has increased since the system was overhauled in 2006.
“It would be interesting to know what it was in 2005 or ’06,” said David G. Tuerck of Suffolk University’s Beacon Hill Institute. “It’s too bad it took forever to get this information from these people.”
Lyons began pushing the Patrick administration for a full accounting of all state spending on illegal immigrants last May.
In her letter, Bigby apologized to Lyons for his long wait. Her spokeswoman explained that it took time to get “a thorough and accurate” accounting of the spending.
Lyons took a gracious stance. “I think this opens the lines of communication with the administration, and this administration recognizes that openness and transparency are something we are very serous about. This is a good first step,” he said.
“But we started this process in May, and here we are in October, so hopefully it will be a little quicker than this next time.”
Ronald Reagan