In an opinion editorial penned by Christopher Jacobs for The Federalist, the author discusses the potential strategy of the incoming Senate Majority Leader, John Thune, R-S.D., to address border and national security needs in a budget reconciliation bill.
Jacobs argues that this approach would bypass the constant demands of Democrats to pair increases in defense and nondefense spending, which have resulted in expensive omnibus spending bills.
He suggests that a border security measure should also incorporate enhanced citizenship verification procedures for federal health care programs. He believes that these measures would not only help finance new security spending but also deter further migration.
Jacobs points out that while federal law has required applicants for many programs to declare their citizenship status since 1986, most states took little action to verify these declarations for decades. He cites a 2005 report from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, which found that 47 state Medicaid programs often or always allowed self-declaration of citizenship, and 27 states took no action to verify these self-declarations.
He criticizes Democrats for attempting to circumvent these requirements after they regained control of Congress in November 2006. He notes that Democrats proposed an alternative verification mechanism based on matching an applicant's name and Social Security number as part of legislation reauthorizing the children's health insurance program in 2007. While this mechanism could potentially verify citizenship status, Jacobs argues that it does not confirm the applicant's identity, thereby encouraging fraud.
He also criticizes Democrats for using a similar measure when crafting Obamacare in 2009. He mentions that Section 1411 of the law relies on the same Social Security match mechanism.
Jacobs recalls the national attention drawn to immigration verification in 2009 when Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., shouted, "You lie!" in response to Obama's claim that his proposed reforms would not apply to illegal immigrants. Despite this, Jacobs laments that Republicans effectively forgot about the issue upon regaining control of Congress and the White House.
Jacobs concludes by suggesting that budget reconciliation provides an ideal opportunity for the new Republican Congress to rectify an oversight from Trump's first term. He proposes that lawmakers should eliminate the lenient verification requirements contained in Obamacare and instead require state Exchanges and Medicaid programs to use the original verification regime that Republicans established in the Deficit Reduction Act.
Jacobs quotes Hillary Clinton's 1993 testimony before Congress about her health care plan, where she said, "We do not want to do anything to encourage more illegal immigration into this country. We know now that too many people come in for medical care as it is. We certainly dont want [illegal aliens] having the same benefits that American citizens are entitled to have."
Jacobs ends his piece by suggesting that it would be poetically ironic for Congress to fund enhanced border security in part by preventing taxpayer-funded benefits from going to undocumented immigrants, a nod to Donald Trump's controversial 2016 campaign claim that Mexico would fund his proposed border wall.
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