House Republicans push back on Biden plan to extend Medicaid to DACA recipients
Gabrielle M. Etzel
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The House Oversight Subcommittee on Healthcare and Financial Services questioned Ellen Montz of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services regarding transparency on a proposed rule to extend Medicaid insurance coverage to recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
“The Biden Administration and CMS are willfully incentivizing further illegal immigration by proposing to expand Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace eligibility to DACA recipients,” read a statement from the Republican majority after the hearing.
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President Joe Biden announced the proposed rule in April, and the comment period on the rule listed in the federal register closed on June 23.
Montz testified before Congress saying that the proposed rule would bring CMS’s definition of “lawful resident” in line with that of the Department of Homeland Security, despite the fact that the constitutionality of the DACA program is currently under review.
“By definition, DACA recipients are still — and always were — unlawfully present in the United States. The Biden administration cannot simply alter this fact,” said Subcommittee Chairwoman Lisa McClain (R-MI) in her opening statement.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) retorted that extending Medicaid coverage to DACA recipients “shouldn’t even be a question” because Dreamers are “America’s proof of concept.”
“They give, and they give, and they give to a country that does not love them back,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “What in the American exceptionalism is going on here?”
Republican committee members raised the fear that extending free medical benefits to unlawful residents would spur increased illegal immigration rates.
Montz testified that she did not know about the rate of illegal immigration and stressed that this extension of subsidized or free health insurance would only be available to those who fit the criteria of DACA recipients, or those who came to the United States as minors before 2007. “[The Department of Health and Human Services] does not set immigration policy,” said Montz.
“I think it’s a stretch to say that there’s no connection at all to people receiving free healthcare in this country who are here illegally … and there not being people thinking ‘Maybe I could get that free healthcare too,'” said Virginia Foxx (R-NC).
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“It’s basically a run on the institution,” said Eric Burlison (R-MO), referencing an analysis from the famed free-market economist Milton Friedman that a country cannot sustain both open borders and a welfare state. “I’m just beside myself that we would think that this could occur without continuing to bankrupt a nation that is on the tipping point.”
Montz explained that CMS estimates that only approximately 13,000 individuals would be enrolled in Medicaid under the DACA extension.
When asked about the cost of the program, Montz referenced the impact estimate in the proposed rule, which projects an annual cost of $100 to $130 million. A range of $40 to $50 million of the burden would fall on states that opt-in to the CHIPS health insurance system, covering children and pregnant women.
Although Republican members of the committee expressed concerns that their constituents would face a state and federal burden for this expense, the guidance stipulates that CMS’s estimates “do not rise to the level of specified thresholds for significant burden to the States.”
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Montz also acknowledged a lack of knowledge regarding the amount of debt incurred by the United States as a whole and the public debt burden of each taxpaying citizen, which Burlison estimated was over $250,000 per taxpayer.
Summer Lee (D-PA) called the entire hearing a “powerful course of fearmongering,” saying that “cutting healthcare is par for the course for the so-called pro-life party.”