Who's Telling The Truth About Funding For Illegal Immigrants?
Statement
Q: Dr. Cassidy, I'm very concerned the health care proposal before Congress will provide payments to illegal immigrants. The President says it won't, but others say it will. Who's lying and who's telling the truth?
A: If the President was talking about the House Democrats' bill, he wasn't telling the whole truth, but he wasn't telling a bald-faced lie either.
Technically, he wasn't lying because Section 246 of the House Democrats' bill reads, "Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States."
However, as the Congressional Research Service points out, "H.R. 3200 does not contain a mechanism to verify immigration status." Because there's no enforcement mechanism, Section 246 isn't worth the paper it's printed on. And that's how House Democrats want it. They want to be able to say H.R. 3200 won't provide payments to illegal immigrants, but they designed the bill to hide the fact that it will.
If House Democrats really intended for the bill to prevent payments to illegal immigrants, they would have voted for Nevada Republican Dean Heller's amendment in the House Ways & Committee. Heller's amendment said, in order to "utilize the public health insurance option, an individual must have had his or her eligibility determined and approved" by the SAVE program or IEVS. Democrats voted against it unanimously.
Friday evening, the White House released a new set of talking points to clarify the President's position on this issue. One of the points reads, "Verification will be required when purchasing health insurance on the exchange. One option is the SAVE program "
Clearly, the White House recognized that H.R. 3200 does not provide adequate safeguards against payments for illegal immigrants and adopted a program that House Democrats rejected. At issue is whether this proposal will make the leap from talking point to concrete legislative language.
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