Obama’s amnesty plan raises questions about Obamacare access for illegal immigrants

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President Obama’s Thursday evening immigration announcement has raised a lot of questions about constitutionality, separation of powers and amnesty. Recent comments by administration officials also have taxpayers wondering if they will be left to pick up the tab on healthcare through the Obamacare exchanges for these newly legal immigrants.

As of the moment, the answer seems to be no.

Anonymous administration officials told The New York Times ahead of Obama’s Thursday evening announcement on his executive amnesty order that illegal immigrants will “most likely” be treated the same way as DREAMers.

This will not grant them full legal status, meaning that neither the 5 million illegal immigrants helped by Obama’s expected executive order nor DREAMers — illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children — are eligible for Obamacare coverage or subsidies.

But the Obama administration has certainly gone back on their word before.

And they have already batted around the idea of allowing DREAMers access to coverage under the law.

Health and Human Services chief Sylvia Burwell called for extending Obamacare benefits to DREAM-eligible illegal immigrants last week during a Obamacare outreach Google Hangout.

“DREAMers are not able to be covered in the marketplace. And this is an issue that I think is more than a health care issue — it is an immigration issue,” Burwell said.

“And I think everyone probably knows that this administration feels incredibly strongly about the fact that we need to fix that. We need to reform the system and make the changes that we need that will lead to benefits in everything from health care to economics to so many things — a very important step that we need to take as a nation.”

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R – Ala.) argues that Obama doesn’t have the power to grant illegal immigrants Obamacare eligibility or even to grant them amnesty in the first place.

“It is plain that President Obama has no authority to grant lawful status to those declared unlawful by the duly passed laws of the United States,” Sessions told The New York Times. “Nor does the president have any authority to declare such individuals eligible to receive health benefits that have been restricted to lawful residents.”

Even if Obama tries to grant DREAMers and other illegal immigrants the right to health coverage under Obamacare, the current Healthcare.gov system doesn’t even allow legal immigrants to sign up.

Calling it “a glitch” with a fix on the way, the site is still preventing legal immigrants from submitting their green card as proof of identity and legal residence, The Daily Caller reported.

This is the same issue that led to about 300,000 people losing coverage earlier this year.