_________House Poised to Act on Senate Health Care Bill (call Feinstein,Boxer STOP THIS BILL!)
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Date: 2010-03-11, 10:55AM PST
Reply to: comm-byuwu-1639337297@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]
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House Poised to Act on Senate Health Care Bill
The Senate health care bill, H.R. 3590, which still lacks adequate verification measures to prevent millions of illegal aliens from accessing taxpayer funded health benefits, is back. (See FAIR’s Legislative Analysis of H.R. 3590 for an in-depth analysis of the bill). President Obama is urging the House to pass the bill with no amendments by next Thursday, March 18th. (The Hill, March 4, 2010).
The Senate health care reform bill is problematic for several reasons:
The bill fails to effectively verify eligibility of applicants so as to prevent illegal aliens from accessing the taxpayer-subsidized “exchange” marketplace; and
The Senate bill circumvents existing law which requires that legal immigrants wait five years before accessing federal health care benefits. This change alone would cost American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars and encourage the immigration of individuals who would immediately begin to drain the system.
Last December, the Senate debated H.R.3590 for weeks, but still refused to address immigration issues. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Senator John Ensign (R-NV) introduced amendments that would have significantly improved the immigration-related provisions in the bill, but leadership never allowed a vote on either amendment. (FAIR Legislative Update, December 14, 2009). In fact, the Senate passed this massive legislation without ever acknowledging the significant immigration policy issues within the bill. Now, President Obama and Congressional leaders are putting intense pressure on members of the House to pass the Senate bill in its original form, including the verification loopholes.
If the House passes the Senate bill as-is, a separate bill would be needed to fix the issues House Democrats have with the bill. However, such a bill would have to pass the mine-laden Senate where one Senator can prevent a vote. Senate rules require 60 votes to end a filibuster and proceed to a vote, but the Democrats lost their filibuster-proof majority with the January election of Senator Scott Brown (R-MA). In an effort to bypass the 60 vote threshold, Senate leaders have indicated they are willing to pass health care legislation using the budget reconciliation process, which requires a simple majority, only 51 votes. (Politico, March 3, 2010).
Reconciliation, which was designed to pass budget and tax measures, is controversial for many reasons, and not all Senate Democrats have expressed willingness to use it. Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) told reporters last week that it is not “the best way to do this for a lot of reasons.” (ABC News, March 5, 2010). Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) generally opposed using reconciliation to pass a comprehensive health care reform bill (The Atlantic, March 5, 2010), but now suggests that the Democrats’ plan to modify the bill through reconciliation is appropriate. Id. Meanwhile Senator John McCain (R-AZ) is seeking bipartisan support to block the Democrats from using reconciliation to pass healthcare. (The Hill, March 5, 2010).
Whether or not reconciliation is ultimately used, nothing can be done until the House passes the Senate health care bill with zero modifications. If the House schedules a vote within the next two weeks as the president has requested, it is unlikely any debate or amendments will be allowed, including ones that address immigration in a way that protects the American taxpayer. The new law will lack a meaningful and effective verification system, it will give the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) the power to waive any existing verification requirements, and it will fail to require that applicants for taxpayer-subsidized insurance verify their identity or eligibility for benefits. (See FAIR’s Legislative Analysis of H.R. 3590 for more information).
Over the last few weeks, lawmakers and the president have engaged in an ongoing public debate about health care. Unfortunately, they have remained silent on the immigration issues that FAIR and other groups have raised, and there is no indication that these issues will be addressed as the push to pass health care reform proceeds. In fact, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said last week that immigration is not central to the Democrats’ health care reform overhaul, even though it is an important issue to many in her caucus. (See The Hill, March 2, 2010). Though better than the bill passed in the House, the Senate bill falls short of true immigration reformers’ expectations and full consideration of these concerns should be allowed before final passage. (FAIR’s Legislative Update, November 23, 2009).
Stay tuned to FAIR for the latest on immigration and health care reform…
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