(HorizonPost.com) – The Biden administration has finalized a new rule proposed last year to expand subsidized health coverage to include illegal aliens protected from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
The White House pledged last year to expand Obamacare to cover roughly 100,000 so-called “Dreamers.” In a news release last Thursday, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that the rule had been finalized and would take effect on November 1, 2024, when the next enrollment period for Obamacare begins. Coverage under taxpayer-subsidized health insurance for illegals would then begin on December 1.
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra noted in the news release that over a third of DACA illegals are uninsured and the new rule will make them eligible to enroll in the government-subsidized health insurance program.
The administration claims that providing government-funded health insurance to illegal aliens would be a boost to the economy.
President Biden’s domestic policy advisor Neera Tanden told reporters that the rule reflected “the president’s belief that health care is a right, not a privilege, for all Americans.” Tanden said Biden believed that this should include the non-citizens enrolled in the DACA program.
During the 2020 Democrat primary debates, Joe Biden, along with every other Democrat running for president, raised his hand when asked if illegal immigrants should be covered under the Affordable Care Act. When speaking with reporters, Tanden boasted that the new rule would make them eligible “for the first time.”
Republicans have opposed the DACA program since President Obama unilaterally enacted it in 2012. Since taking office, the Biden administration has sought to protect DACA from challenges by Republicans by codifying it through the federal bureaucracy.
At the same time, open borders advocates have criticized the Biden Administration for not taking steps to provide a pathway to citizenship for so-called “Dreamers,” including for failing to make such a plan part of the Senate bill on immigration that was blocked by Republicans earlier this year.
Copyright 2024, HorizonPost.com
