John Culberson: “everyone who is about to vote for this bill needs to read it. Mr. Speaker, on page 3 of the bill, on the bottom of the…”

“everyone who is about to vote for this bill needs to read it. Mr. Speaker, on page 3 of the bill, on the bottom of the page, each State is going to conduct its own audit of eligibility of people that they are providing federally funded health insurance for. Now, we know already the State of California has said they want to provide health insurance coverage to all children in the State, regardless of whether they are here legally or not. But they can't do that. California cannot extend health insurance to people who are undocumented, because Federal law currently requires that you must prove you are here legally or that you are a citizen under existing law. But this bill repeals that verification requirement. The bill specifically allows each State 'shall audit itself.' Under State law, States can use any verification method they wish to determine whether or not somebody is a citizen or they are here legally. Obviously, this law repeals the verification requirement and allows the State to provide health insurance coverage to people who are here illegally or undocumented aliens. In fact, there is no way to even verify their income level. This is an open-ended faucet that the States are going to be able to tap into the Federal treasury.…”