Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has joined a coalition of 16 states in filing a lawsuit to prevent the Biden-Harris administration from extending Affordable Care Act (ACA) benefits to undocumented immigrants. The policy, scheduled to take effect on November 1, would make over 200,000 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients eligible for taxpayer-subsidized health plans, including 3,460 individuals in Alabama.
"The latest assault on the American worker by the Biden-Harris administration is forcing tax-paying American citizens to subsidize Obamacare for illegal aliens," said Attorney General Steve Marshall. "Not only is this unconstitutional, but it is just plain wrong. First, this administration is demanding that hardworking Americans pay for someone else’s college degree, then it forces them to pay for medical procedures that violate their beliefs, and now they want to dictate paying for healthcare for people who shouldn’t even be in this country. At some point the taxpayers are going to run out of money to give the government to fund their ill-conceived entitlement programs."
The Department of Health and Human Services announced the new regulation which, according to the complaint filed by the coalition, violates the explicit text of the ACA itself. "In the ACA, Congress limited eligibility to participate in a qualified health plan through a subsidized health exchange to citizens or nationals of the United States and individuals 'lawfully present' in the United States," reads part of the complaint.
Additionally, the complaint asserts that the proposed rule contravenes federal law prohibiting public benefits from being given to undocumented immigrants.
Alongside Attorney General Marshall and Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, attorneys general from Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Virginia have also joined the lawsuit.
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