House Republicans took a big step Wednesday toward passage of Rep. Diane Black’s No Subsidies Without Verification Act, a bill that would prohibit distribution of federal health insurance premium subsidies until a system is in place to verify applicant eligibility, as required by the law establishing Obamacare. The entire Republican caucus – joined by a single Democrat – supported the measure in a preliminary vote and final passage is expected today. The bill should be incorporated in the forthcoming continuing resolution for 2014.

The Tennessee Republican introduced her measure because the Department of Health and Human Services recently adopted an Obamacare regulation decreeing that the federal government would not verify whether applicants actually qualified for aid under the law. This means an individual who, for example, earns $100,000 a year and gets insurance through his employer can tell the government he only earns $20,000, and doesn’t get employer-provided insurance. The U.S. Treasury would then begin sending generous tax-paid health insurance subsidies to that individual and nobody in government would have a clue.