WASHINGTONHealth Care and Financial Services Subcommittee Chair Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) opened today’s hearing titled Why Expanding Medicaid to DACA Recipients Will Exacerbate the Border Crisis by examining how the Biden administration is seeking to rewrite laws to extend taxpayer-funded health care benefits to DACA recipients. Subcommittee Chair McClain stressed that this proposal would exacerbate the crisis on our southern border.
Below are subcommittee chair McClains’ remarks as prepared.
Now I recognize myself for an opening statement.
Today we are again overseeing yet another disastrous policy decision by the Biden administration that will only exacerbate the crisis along our southern border.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have proposed a rule to extend Medicaid, CHIP, and Obamacare eligibility to recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, in direct contradiction to Congressional intent.
Once again, Biden administration officials are trying to rewrite the laws through agency regulation because they know their policies are not supported by the American people and would be unable to pass the House or Senate.
Instead, they are proposing a rule with dubious legal basis to provide taxpayer-funded federal health benefits to people who have entered the country illegally.
Even President Obama realized this a lot when his administration ruled in 2012 that recipients of DACA shouldn’t be eligible for Medicaid.
A federal judge has already ruled illegal the entire DACA program, which was unilaterally created through nothing more than an agency memorandum. DHS is currently prohibited from accepting additional applicants by court order.
Despite this, the administration is moving forward with a plan to spend hundreds of millions of additional taxpayer dollars on health benefits for DACA recipients.
Estimates from CMS show that the expansion will increase state spending on Medicaid and CHIP by $40 million, and federal spending would increase by another $60 million annually.
And that doesn’t even include the proposed Obamacare expansion, which is expected to cost another $15 million a year.
And you know who the Biden administration expects to pay?
American taxpayers.
Additionally, the Biden administration’s proposal will incentivize future illegal immigration.
The Biden administration has chosen to prioritize illegal immigrants over the American people.
I just don’t get it.
These funds could be used to provide better health care to the American people.
That’s why we need to stop this administration from rewarding illegal immigrants at the expense of American citizens.
We have to make sure that Americans are put first.
By definition, DACA recipients are still and always have been illegally present in the United States. The Biden administration cannot simply alter that fact.
By extending federal benefits to illegal immigrants, President Biden is signaling to the rest of the world that not only will the United States not enforce laws that prevent illegal immigration, but illegal immigrants will be rewarded with federal benefits.
We should not reward people illegally present in the United States with benefits that have been created for American citizens and those who are legally present in the country.
The Biden administration is responsible for one of the worst crises in recent memory along our Southwestern border.
By extending federal benefits to illegal immigrants, the Biden administration is once again fanning a runaway fire that will only incentivize more illegal immigration.
Such reckless and tone-deaf policies have become the status quo for this administration.
With that, I want to thank Dr. Montz for being here today. We look forward to your testimony.
I now give in to Ranking Member Porter for his opening statement.
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