amendment preventing illegals from receiving Obamacare

The Senate voted down an amendment that would have prevented illegal aliens from receiving taxpayer-funded health care if they are granted legal status in an immigration reform package.

The 43-56 vote — taken during the Senate’s so-called budget vote-o-rama Friday and the early hours of Saturday — split along party lines the “gang of eight” senators currently working on an immigration reform package.

Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, the sponsor of the amendment, said that the vote put “immigration reform in jeopardy.”

“The core legal and economic principle of immigration is that those seeking admission to a new country must be self-sufficient and contribute to the economic health of the nation,” Sessions said in a statement. “But, for years, the federal government has failed to enforce this law. This principle is even more urgent when dealing with those who have illegally entered the country.”

According to Sessions, the ranking member of the Senate budget committee, the Democratic majority’s vote “will dramatically accelerate the insolvency of our entitlement programs and is unfair to American workers and taxpayers.”

The amendment would specifically have prohibited illegal immigrants who gain legal status from accessing health care in the form of Medicaid or Obamacare.

Republican “gang” members — Sens. Marco Rubio, John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Sen. Jeff Flake– all voted in favor of the amendment. Democratic members of the gang of eight — Sens. Dick Durbin, Charles Schumer, Bob Menendez and Michael Bennet — voted against it.

Menendez said that the amendment is unnecessary, because any new immigration package would need to be voted on in the Senate, according to a Roll Call report.

He reportedly added that the amendment could get in the way of current bipartisan immigration negotiations.

“The last thing we need to do in this budget process is to try muck that up,” Menendez said, according to Roll Call. “This is not a great way to try to do your out reach to the Hispanic and immigrant community.”

This has already been posted here. Granted, the subject wasn't very telling of it's content.

Nevertheless, in the future please also post a link to the source form which you copypasta an article.

Well. Absolutely great article. This pretty much foreshadows the upcoming passage of CIR. Even hardcore conservative GOP Congressmen are bracing for CIR. This article clearly proves that.

I came in this topic just to post this exact same thing, lol.

I believe something like this is a big hint on CIR nearing introduction and passage soon after. Sessions probably knows behind the scenes CIR is ready to be introduced and will pass most likely, so he is trying to go one step ahead and start trying to block certain advantages to immigrants ahead of time.

The minute I read the word "amendment", I knew what the deal was. You usually introduce amendments to existing bills. There is no bill here. What exactly are we trying to amend?

This is a great indication that some GOP are really in for CIR. They want to get Hispanic support while not angering their voter base. If CIR does pass, those GOP who support CIR will be able to swing some Hispanic vote while not losing base voters by calming that they stopped illegal immigrants from receiving Obamacare. This is a good political move for GOP. I myself don't really care about Obamacare, I just want my ObamaCard.

GREAT NEWS I predict CIR by the end of March!

hmmm controversial, this is

Amendment? To what? The Constitution? Lol.

The Affordable Care Act.