For years, Democrats have touted “Medicare for all” as a sacred mantra, no matter the price tag or who foots the bill. Now, deep-blue states are finding out the true cost of such virtue signaling.
In the most recent development, news broke last week that Illinois Governor JB Pritzker’s latest budget proposal cuts funding for a program that provides taxpayer-funded healthcare to illegal aliens aged 42 to 65. Democrats in Springfield are unsurprisingly outraged over the proposed cut, but as Pritzker’s office made clear, the math simply doesn’t add up. The program is expected to cost about $538 million this year alone – even as the state faces a soaring budget deficit.
But as disastrous as taxpayer-funded healthcare for illegal aliens has been in Illinois, things are even worse in California and Minnesota, which both rolled out programs offering “free” healthcare to every illegal alien, regardless of age. California Governor Gavin Newsom, once the policy’s biggest champion, is now freezing new enrollments as costs spiral. Meanwhile, Minnesota Democrats are publicly battling over their runaway Medicaid expansion.
As AMAC reported last month, California’s journey into this mess began in 2022, when Newsom and the Democrat supermajority extended Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program, to all adults aged 26 to 49, regardless of immigration status. The move, which took effect in 2024, was billed as a national first and, in Newsom’s words, a “transformative step towards strengthening the healthcare system for all Californians.”
Officials initially estimated about 764,000 illegal immigrants would enroll. Instead, enrollment has been roughly 1.6 million and continues climbing, according to CalMatters. The state is now scrambling for billions to cover these colossal miscalculations. Newsom has resorted to taking out $6.2 billion in loans from the general fund to keep Medicaid afloat.
As AMAC Newsline recently noted, this isn’t really a loan – it’s a bailout. With California’s debt already at $273 billion, Medi-Cal is unlikely to repay the general fund. Newsom’s choice to prioritize illegal aliens over taxpaying citizens has drawn harsh criticism from California Republicans, who called for a freeze on new enrollments. But thanks to a Biden-era policy, California Democrats have used a deceptive maneuver to pass the bill off to federal taxpayers.
In essence, California can tax Medicaid insurers, then pay that money back to those same insurers through Medicaid payments for patient care. This artificially inflates the state’s Medicaid spending on paper, which means California qualifies for a larger federal match, effectively turning state-collected tax dollars into extra federal funding.
In practice, this means federal taxpayers everywhere – blue state, red state, doesn’t matter – are paying billions each year to prop up California’s Medicaid expansion for illegal aliens. Still, California’s spending problem couldn’t be hidden forever. Newsom is now desperately trying to slow the bleeding, according to National Review.
Starting next year, the state will stop enrolling new low-income illegal aliens in Medi-Cal. Coverage won’t be stripped from those already enrolled, but new applicants will be denied. By 2027, adults with “unsatisfactory immigration status” must pay a $100 monthly premium.
The about-face should hardly be a surprise after the program blew through cost projections by $2.7 billion, with Newsom acknowledging the need for “difficult but necessary steps” to preserve Medi-Cal’s fiscal viability. His office estimates that freezing new enrollments and adding premiums could save $5.4 billion by 2028-29.
It’s important to note these “savings” don’t mean California will recover or bank $5.4 billion. Instead, the figure reflects money the state will avoid spending compared to what projections had been had the program continued unchecked. In other words, these are costs California won’t incur, not funds returning to the budget.
Minnesota followed California’s lead into financial ruin, launching a similar plan expecting 5,700 illegal alien enrollees. Instead, over 20,000 signed up within months, pushing costs nearly 30 percent over budget and climbing, according to Conservative Brief. The state’s response was to end coverage for undocumented adults while allowing children to remain on the rolls.
Even though Minnesota Governor Tim Walz himself admitted spending is unsustainable, the cuts predictably sparked left-wing outrage elsewhere.
State Senator Alice Mann accused Republicans of trying to strip people of their healthcare “under the guise of fiscal responsibility.” But as Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth noted, “Those that are here illegally, they can still join the private market, so it’s not that healthcare is being denied in any way.”
What’s happening in California and Minnesota isn’t a fluke. It’s the natural endgame of the Democrat Party’s open-borders, free-healthcare-for-all agenda. The left refuses to accept one simple truth – there’s always a price, no matter how noble the cause. Vague overtures to “compassion” and “kindness” don’t balance budgets, and every “free” service they promise shifts the cost onto someone else.
In the end, it’s not just the taxpayers of Illinois, California, and Minnesota left dealing with the hangover; every American taxpayer must pick up the tab. Democrats are running out of places to hide from the fallout of their own policies. The question is whether voters will let them try the same playbook on a national scale or if these state-level fiascoes will serve as a warning enough.
Sarah Katherine Sisk is a proud Hillsdale College alumna and a master’s student in economics at George Mason University. You can follow her on X @SKSisk76.
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