Reporter Lauren Carroll details the way the act's employer mandate could penalize large employers that drop employee health insurance. Because the penalty kicks in if even one employee qualifies for subsidized insurance on the exchange, and because illegal immigrants aren't eligible for those subsidies, a business could hypothetically duck that penalty by hiring only illegal immigrants, Carroll reports.
"The claim isn’t so much inaccurate as it is speculative," she concludes.
Or as University of Virginia health law professor Margaret Riley puts it, "It is offered more as another argument against the employer mandate than as something that employers might actually try."
"We ruled on this topic five years ago, but we’ll repeat it again: Death squads are not a part of the Affordable Care Act, and you can still catch Dorothy on Golden Girls reruns most nights," wrote Lauren Burns. "We rate this claim Pants on Fire!"