Pete Sessions: “the bill we are moving forward today is a prescription drug bill, a Medicare reform bill. It is not a welfare reform…”

“the bill we are moving forward today is a prescription drug bill, a Medicare reform bill. It is not a welfare reform bill. Unfortunately, through the process, as it often happens when legislation moves through this body, the Finance Committee, without having hearings, faced an amendment that came up and it became a part of the bill that is on the Senate floor today. It would provide benefits not to American citizens but to non-citizens. It would amend the law that was passed some time ago prohibiting such actions. So I have sent to the desk an amendment which would strike section 605 of the bill, the section that allows Medicaid and State health insurance program coverage to be given to noncitizens, and insert a sense of the Senate that this section should be referred back to the Finance Committee. In 1996, with a vote of 74 to 24, this body made a principled, purposeful decision during reform of welfare in this country, that non- citizens should not access Federal programs such as TANF and Medicaid for the first 5 years they are in the United States.”