This is an absurd attack on immigration reform ...





@SenTedCruz If Gang of 8 bill passes, those newly legalized are exempted from Obamacare. HUGE incentive for employers to hire them instead of Americans.

... but at least Ted Cruz is effectively acknowledging that ObamaCare is here to stay, because if he seriously thought repeal was a possibility, he wouldn't be raising ObamaCare as a reason to oppose immigration reform.

That being said, his claim is ridiculous. Basically, he's saying that there will be an incentive for employers to hire newly legalized residents because certain employers who don't offer insurance to their employees would only need to pay fines if the employees were eligible for ObamaCare subsidies—and newly legalized residents won't be eligible for those subsidies for at least 13 years.

The first problem with his is that it's illegal for employers to ask people about their status—they can only ask if they are legally authorized to work. Even if somebody volunteered the information to an employer, it would be illegal for the employer to make a decision on the basis of it.

Moreover, it turns out that the only employers who could in theory break the law to take advantage of this situation are employers who (a) have more than 50 employees and (b) don't offer those employees affordable insurance options. That's because no other employers would face the fines. Altogether, the fine is expected to come into play for just 1 in 300 employees.

So Cruz's scheme would be illegal, but even it weren't, only a tiny subset of a subset of employers could take advantage of it. Even then, Congress could easily tweak the way the fines work, whether by expanding access to ObamaCare or at least treating the fines equally. But we'd only get to the point where that would be worth looking at if companies break the law and discriminate on the basis of residency status. In the final analysis, this is just more hot air from Sen. Cruz. But at least this hot air acknowledges that ObamaCare is here to stay.