This week I introduced legislation that would eliminate a new barrier to health-care and ensure that newborns, low-income children, low-income pregnant women, individuals with disabilities, and all other U.S. citizens eligible will receive the care that they deserve. H.R. 1878 would be a flexible option for states to verify citizenship in order to determine Medicaid eligibility.

Just like the medical profession, Congress must abide by the principle to do no harm. Our most vulnerable population, who is legally eligible for Medicaid, is locked out.

This new federal requirement was added to the Medicaid program by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA), enacted February 8, 2006. The rule was implemented on July 1, 2006. Prior to enactment of the DRA, states were permitted to use their discretion in requiring such citizenship documentation.

Less than a year after implementation of the new rule, states across the country are facing higher administrative costs and declines in enrollment. Congress cannot stand idly by while pregnant women, newborns, the elderly and people with disabilities, who are citizens and are entitled to Medicaid, are being denied because of a draconian rule.

H.R. 1878 would do the following:

• It would restore citizenship verification as a state option. States would also be permitted to utilize the standards most appropriate to their population as long as such standards were no more stringent than those currently used by the Social Security Administration and include native American tribal documents when appropriate.



• It would ensure that individuals are afforded sufficient time to provide citizenship documentation utilizing the same reasonable time period standard that is available to legal immigrants to provide satisfactory evidence of their immigration status.



• It protects children who are U.S. citizens by virtue of being born in the United States from being denied coverage after birth because of citizenship verification requirements.



• It clarifies ambiguities in federal law to ensure that these citizen children, regardless of the immigration status of their parents, are treated like all other low-income children born in the United States and are deemed eligible to receive Medicaid services for one year.



• It ensures that the thousands of citizen children and adults, who were erroneously denied Medicaid because of citizenship verification requirements, may receive retroactive Medicaid eligibility for the coverage they were inappropriately denied.