Rosemary Jenks Pushes for Stronger Verification in Health Care Reform Bill
NumbersUSA's Director of Government Relations joined seven Members of Congress on the East Lawn of the Capitol on Nov. 6, urging for a stronger verification mechanism in the health care reform bill.
Transcript of Rosemary Jenks' statement...
I’m Rosemary Jenks from NumbersUSA, a grassroots organization. We’re non-partisan, and yet I’m standing here with this distinguished group of Republicans because, like all of you, we at NumbersUSA listened when the president said many times, very publicly, and categorically, that illegal aliens would not benefit under his bill. The bill that Speaker Pelosi introduced makes a liar out of the president. That’s the bottom line.
This bill does not prevent illegal aliens from getting health care benefits. It absolutely does not. It addresses verification on only one section of the entire 2,000-page bill, and that’s the affordability credits. And even there, it does not contain adequate language to ensure illegal aliens will not get the benefits.
It doesn’t say anything about legal status with regards to the exchange program or any other part of the bill. The president didn’t say he was going to allow some fig leaf of verification for the affordability credits. He said illegal aliens will not benefit under my bill.
There’s an easy solution to this. The amendments that these gentlemen have proposed, if the rules committee will allow those amendments to go to the floor and be voted on, then we can fix this. If, however, the rules committee does what it is already threatening to do, and prevents these amendments from going to the floor, then we at NumbersUSA and our 900,000 active members will have no choice but to urge every Member of Congress to vote against the rule and stop this bill.