The far Right’s hatred of Obamacare is so great and so senseless they can use it to make two opposing arguments at the same time.
That is what has been happening as the House and Senate try to determine at what point new immigrants will be included in the Affordable Care Act. Earlier this month, ABC News reported that Republicans were willing to hold up the whole bill in order to prevent new immigrants from having access to federal health care subsidies while they work toward citizenship. The current Senate bill plan bars formerly undocumented immigrants from accessing Affordable Care Act subsidies as they work toward permanent residency; GOP Sens. Marco Rubio and Orrin Hatch have proposed an amendment to the bill that would bar those immigrants from Obamacare until five years after they get a green card.
So now, of course, the anti-immigrant Right is using that provision – put into the bill in a futile attempt to satisfy the anti-immigrant Right – to argue against the new immigration policy as a whole.
Last week, Sen. Ted Cruz claimed that the provision amounts to “affirmative action” for “those who are here illegally.”
Sen. Rand Paul piled on today, joking with Glenn Beck, “I’m thinking about lobbying to become an illegal immigrant so I don’t have to participate in Obamacare.” Beck asserted that under the Senate’s plan, everyone who is not an undocumented immigrant will be a “second-class citizen.”
