On Monday, a provision was removed from the GOP’s American Health Care Act that would require an individual’s immigration status to be verified before they could receive the healthcare tax credit. The provision would have allowed the Treasury Department to access immigration status data at DHS, the same failed verification system that Obamacare used.
Under Obamacare 500,000 illegal aliens were able to receive $750 million in taxpayer-funded Obamacare subsidies by 2015. Now even this inadequate system has been removed due to a procedural ruling by the Senate Parliamentarian that determined that the Senate Finance Committee, which would handle the tax credits under the bill, does not have jurisdiction over DHS.
Lauren Aronson, spokeswoman for the tax-writing House Committee on Ways and Means, said that only U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents are still eligible to receive tax credits. The removal of the verification process though has caused more congressional members to pull their support for the bill.
"I am concerned that the bill lacks sufficient safeguards for verifying whether or not an individual applying for health care tax credits is lawfully in this country and eligible to receive them," said Rep. Lou Barletta (R-Penn.).
Read more on this story at Reuters.com.
