What health care for illegals would cost taxpayers

FPI / October 13, 2019

Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders, the frontrunners for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination, have all endorsed a plan in which American taxpayers would foot the bill for health care for illegal immigrants living in the U.S.

A new study found that the cost to taxpayers for the Democrats’ plan, which would cover all 11 to 22 million illegals in the country, would be up to $23 billion per year.

The total includes taxpayer-funded healthcare for at least 2.5 million low-income illegals and their children which alone would cost almost $13 billion a year, according to the study by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).

CIS said that, under the Democrats’ plan, even if just five million illegals enrolled in federal subsidies for health care, American taxpayers would be forced to pay $10.4 billion bill every year.

A scenario in which higher-income illegals are enrolled in Obamacare and poorer illegals take Medicaid, that plan would still cost Americans nearly $20 billion a year assuming every illegal enrolls, the study said.

Analysts have said that the 2020 Democrats’ plan to give health care to illegals at taxpayer expense would drive “strong incentives for people with serious health problems to enter the country or remain longer than their visas allow in order to get government-funded care.”

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that the 2020 Democrats’ health care for illegals plan is the most unpopular policy position in the race for president with opposition from 62 percent of all likely voters.

Currently, U.S. taxpayers are forced to subsidize about $18.5 billion of yearly medical costs for illegals living in the U.S., according to estimates by Chris Conover, formerly of the Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research at Duke University.

Free Press International