When the Affordable Care Act was being written and debated, President Obama took care to emphasize that no illegal immigrants would be eligible for its benefits. Obama and the Democrats who passed the bill were sensitive to public concerns that those who entered the United States illegally should not receive assistance intended for those here legally.

Indeed, an Obama promise along those lines played a role in one of the most notorious incidents of the president’s time in office. “There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants,” Obama said in a Sept. 9, 2009 healthcare address to a joint session of Congress. “This, too, is false. The reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.”