Democrats ARE spending money on healthcare for – Latest News
Last week, Vice President J.D. Vance tweeted: “Democrats are about to shut down the government because they demand we fund healthcare for illegal aliens.”
Democrats and the media bristled. That wasn’t true, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash) protested: “Undocumented immigrants are not eligible to enroll in federally funded health coverage under existing law or Democrats’ funding proposal.”
Liberal fact-checkers argued that Medicaid subsidies for emergency care had been trivial, and didn’t rely as health protection.
But their “fact checks” are simply semantics.
In reality, final yr, nationwide Medicaid spending on “emergency care for undocumented aliens” virtually tripled — as a result of the state of California used it as a methodology of laundering federal money to fund a complete health benefit for its unauthorized residents.
Medicaid is an enormously profitable program for states.
It offers them between $1 and $9 for each $1 they spend on health care advantages for eligible low-income Americans, with none higher restrict.
Illegal immigrants are imagined to be prohibited from receiving Medicaid, as they’re from acquiring Medicare and Obamacare subsidies — however an exception to that is that states could declare federal Medicaid funding for hospitals to offer “emergency care” for unauthorized immigrants.
CNN’s fact-checker performs down this provision, noting: “Less than 1% of total Medicaid spending went toward emergency Medicaid for undocumented immigrants in fiscal year 2023.”
Yet this exception has shortly change into a vital loophole.
From 2023 to 2024, Medicaid spending on “Emergency Services for Undocumented Aliens” instantly soared from $3.8 billion to $9.1 billion.
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This wasn’t due to the financial system or modifications in healthcare prices. In 49 states, in actual fact, emergency Medicaid spending declined.
The surge on this expenditure was solely due to the state of California, the place spending instantly leaped from $1.6 billion to $6.4 billion.
The federal authorities is meant to cowl 50% of California’s Medicaid prices — however Washington paid for 70% of the state’s Medicaid ESUA expenditures in 2024.
What occurred?
In 2024, California turned the primary state to offer complete health insurance coverage to all undocumented immigrants.
Here’s what we all know in regards to the authorities shutdown
Democrats and Republicans failed to succeed in an settlement over a stopgap funding measure by Tuesday evening’s deadline, resulting in the shutdown.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes fell in the beginning of Wednesday’s trading session following the shutdown.
Student loan funds should nonetheless be met during this time, whereas the Education Department will halt new grantmaking exercise and investigations over attainable civil rights violations.
If the shutdown continues, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ nonfarm payrolls report, thought-about far more complete and dependable than the ADP release, won’t be launched on Friday.
Funding for the Hudson Tunnel project and Second Avenue subway extension in New York has been put on maintain.
The program now covers 1.6 million people at a price of $8.5 billion per yr.
This benefit was imagined to be paid for with state-only funds, however California has taken benefit of Medicaid’s open-ended fee constructions to shift the associated fee to the federal authorities.
The state claimed $4.8 billion of elevated Medicaid expenditures as “emergency services for undocumented aliens” — 56% of the associated fee of the eligibility growth.
For context, emergency care usually accounts for solely 5% of health care spending.
This shouldn’t be the one method California made the feds pay for the new benefit: The state additionally imposed a tax on insurers to increase the associated fee of overlaying reliable Medicaid beneficiaries.
That allowed it to say $5 billion in federal revenues as “state funds,” which may very well be used to increase healthcare advantages to immigrants supposedly excluded from Medicaid.
Six different states, together with New York, present complete health advantages to unlawful immigrant adults — though they haven’t but been so brazen about claiming federal funds for the aim.
This summer season’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act solely trimmed the matching charges which states can declare for Medicaid ESUA advantages.
That will scale back the share of California’s prices borne by federal taxpayers from 70% to 50%. The Trump administration may additionally be capable to withhold matching funds for expenditures that are inappropriately categorized as “emergency care.”
But a deeper drawback stays: The monumental and open-ended discretion Medicaid offers states to say federal funding makes it arduous for the feds to make sure that this system’s expenditures are reserved for its supposed functions.
Until that modifications, the Democratic declare that federal money isn’t getting used on unlawful immigrants is just not true.
Chris Pope is a senior fellow on the Manhattan Institute.
