Speech #1030006688

Mr. President. my concern lies in the area of potential financial costs to an already beleaguered American health care system. For example. people who I have talked to in Kansas tell me they cannot understand why we would allow immigration of highly expensive AIDS. and other healthrelated cases into this country. even as our own health care costs are exploding and one out of seven Americans has no health coverage at all. Advocates of lifting the current AIDS exclusions claim that the likely financial cost of doing so will be acceptable and that current immigration laws already contain adequate protections against the entry of persons deemed "likely to become a public charge." Mr. President. this may be true. Thus far. however. I do not believe the case has been adequately made. I am troubled. that there appears to be no documentation on whether or not existing immigration laws have in fact been working effectively to guard against entry of persons found likely to be "a public charge." Similarly. considering that a single AIDS case is currently estimated to cost about $102.000 over the lifetime of the patient. I think we deserve to know a lot more about how many AIDSinfected immigrants we are going to see in coming years if this ban is lifted. And again. I would wish to expand this inquiry to include immigrants who are entering the United States with other healthrelated concerns. I believe the following key questions need to be examined more carefully before we move ahead with the lifting of the current immigration ban. First. what are the estimates of the likely number and origin of persons infected with HIV who are likely to seek entry into the United States in the next few years? Second. what exactly is the projected financial impact of such immigrants on cost to the U.S. public health care programs and to the health care system in general? Third. how effective are our current immigration laws in screening out applicants likely to become "a public charge?" Are these laws working and are they adequately enforced? Mr. President. I intend to support the amendment that has been offered by Senator NICKLES and others to require that the current AIDS exclusion remain in place pending legislative action to the contrary by Congress. I do so for two basic reasons. First. as I have discussed. there are simply too many serious unanswered questions about potential cost to our health care system to permit lifting the AIDS immigration ban without further examination of the issue. Second. I agree with the sponsors of this amendment that the issues involved with AIDS and immigration are too sensitive and too complex to prevent a lifting of the ban by regulation only as the opposition proposes. This amendment offers what I believe to be a sensible alternative. We did try. and I appreciate the efforts of the chairman of the committee and others. to find a compromise.