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At his con­fir­ma­tion hear­ings this week before the Sen­ate Health, Edu­ca­tion, Labor, and Pen­sions and Sen­ate Finance Com­mit­tees, Sec­re­tary of Health and Human Ser­vices-designee Xavier Becer­ra will talk about many sub­jects. Press reports pri­or to the hear­ings indi­cate he will high­light his claimed efforts as a mem­ber of Con­gress “to strength­en and mod­ern­ize Medicare and how we finance it”—ironic claims from some­one who vot­ed for an Oba­macare law that raid­ed Medicare.

But as an in-depth Politi­co arti­cle not­ed, Becer­ra has had one health-care cause near and dear to his heart dur­ing his three decades in pub­lic life: Extend­ing health cov­er­age to for­eign work­ers who broke U.S. law to enter the Unit­ed States. More to the point, as the arti­cle observed, if con­firmed Becer­ra “will have the pow­er to make pub­lic ben­e­fits for undoc­u­ment­ed work­ers a reality”—which would raise tax­pay­er costs, while encour­ag­ing addi­tion­al law-breaking.