From One Obamacare to Another

by Cameron Seward, Heritage Foundation, October 28, 2013

At a time when most Americans want Washington to focus on the economy and the federal budget deficit, the President is attempting to foist another massive Obamacare-style bill on us in the form of the Senate-passed amnesty bill.

The House is considering various bills relating to different aspects of the immigration debate. Even though House leadership has promised not to pass a “comprehensive” immigration bill like the Senate’s, that is not good enough.

Indeed, the President’s close ally, Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), already gave the game away when he said recently: “Get us to conference. In a conference, we can negotiate the notion of bringing all those bills together.”

It is abundantly clear that the end goal is for the House to pass any bill — anything to get to conference with the Senate where a comprehensive, amnesty-centric bill is inevitable.

As we continue to see with Obamacare, the American people are always at the losing end of these monstrous pieces of legislation.

An all-or-nothing approach to immigration reform will hurt Americans by disregarding the rule of law and costing taxpayers trillions in benefits and services for those granted amnesty, while not guaranteeing enforcement of laws already on the books.

Want to see how the Obama Administration could potentially use waiver power for immigration? Look no further than Obamacare. The Senate-passed amnesty bill includes similar provisions.

Do these flawed, costly, unfair and unworkable policies sound familiar? This is Obamacare 2.0, another misguided call for comprehensive legislation. Why should the American people trust an administration that can’t even successfully set up a website to handle something as complex as immigration reform?

Heritage has mapped out a positive path forward to immigration reform.

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