Wednesday, December 8, 2010

DREAM Act and Health Care

I wanted to highlight one particular section of the CBO score of the bill (S. 3992) that’s applicable to health care:

Although the legislation would not have a large impact on deficits over the 2011-2020 period, the eventual conversion of some of the conditional non-immigrants to legal permanent resident (LPR) status after 2020 would lead to significant increases in spending for the federal health insurance exchanges, Medicaid, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).  Pursuant to section 311 of the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2009 (S. Con. Res. 70), CBO estimates that the bill would increase projected deficits by more than $5 billion in at least one of the four consecutive 10-year periods starting in 2021.

Because the bill provides that conditional non-immigrants will not be eligible for health insurance subsidies or Medicaid, and because the bill requires conditional non-immigrants to wait ten years until obtaining legal resident status (at which point they would qualify for both Medicaid and insurance subsidies, if eligible based on income and other criteria), spending on health benefits for any individuals eventually granted legal status would not occur until 2020 (i.e., outside the budgetary window).  As noted above, however, CBO believes the fiscal effects after 2020 – which are not paid for – would be “significant,” although the score does not quantify their magnitude.  CBO also notes that the unpaid-for spending on insurance subsidies, Medicaid, and related programs after 2020 means the bill is subject to a budget point of order for increasing deficits by more than $5 billion in succeeding decades.

In terms of process, it’s also worth noting that Sen. Reid indicated this morning his anticipation that the Senate would reconsider its earlier vote on proceeding to the defense authorization bill tonight.  That comment indicates the majority apparently believes that cloture will not be invoked on proceeding to any of the four other measures scheduled to be voted on tonight (including the DREAM Act), because if any cloture motion were to succeed this afternoon, we would proceed to 30 hours of post-cloture debate – which would obviously preclude a further vote on the defense bill this evening.