Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra will oversee a scheme by President Joe Biden to open Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, and Medicaid rolls to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
This week, Biden announced a plan to open Obamacare and Medicaid rolls, both subsidized by American taxpayers, to nearly 600,000 illegal aliens currently enrolled in DACA — the program created by former President Obama, via executive order, that has shielded more than a million illegal aliens from deportation through the years.
Becerra, whom Breitbart News reported has long reviewed opening taxpayer-funded health coverage options to illegal aliens, will oversee the scheme — proposing a federal rule by the end of this month which, if finalized, would make DACA illegal aliens eligible for Obamacare and Medicaid.
“Of the nearly 580,000 DREAMers who arrived in this country as children and currently have DACA protections, an estimated 34 percent do not have health insurance coverage … [this] rule would change that,” Becerra said in a statement.
“Under the proposed rule, DACA recipients will be able to apply for coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace, where they may qualify for financial assistance based on income, and through their state Medicaid agency,” the White House wrote in its announcement.
Prior research has found that offering Obamacare to illegal aliens would cost taxpayers about $4,600 per illegal alien. Such an estimate indicates that taxpayers could be charged about $2.8 billion every year to provide subsidized health coverage to every DACA illegal alien.
Already, American taxpayers are forced to subsidize at least $18.5 billion of annual medical costs for illegal aliens living in the United States, according to estimates by Chris Conover, formerly of the Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research at Duke University.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.