Do illegal immigrants receive US government healthcare?
by ChrisDC on September 10th, 2009 Two points, keithhold. First, bear in mind that whether they receive health care now is a separate question from whether they would be covered under the health care reform bills under discussion. The health bills under discussion relate to helping people get health insurance — not health care services directly. People who are not legally present in the United States would not be eligible for that assistance under any of the bills that have been proposed so far. Do they get “U.S. government healthcare” now? Well, first of all, I don’t know exactly what you mean. We have a federal health care system for veterans of the U.S. military (and it’s not unlike the British NHS, the doctors and nurses are federal government employees and the hospitals and clinics are government facilities). You have to be a veteran in order to be served there, so in that case, no. We have a federally operated health insurance system for people age 65 and older called Medicare.
