Posted on 12/03/2018 11:49:53 PM PST by ransomnote
A California lawmaker has pledged to re-introduce a bill that would allow adults who live in the state illegally to receive medical care paid for by the government.
State Assembly member Joaquin Arambula, a Democrat and a doctor, announced the plans Monday as the legislature convened at the state capitol, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Should the bill advance, California would become the first state to extend Medicaid coverage regardless of immigration status. State projections for last year's bill found that 1.8 million people in California are uninsured and reside there illegally; roughly 1.2 million would qualify for Medi-Cal, the name of the state's Medicaid program.
The legislation is being introduced ahead of a new governor entering office. Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom initially had vowed to seek a single-payer healthcare system for the state, but tamped down his rhetoric later in the campaign, focusing instead on extending coverage to the uninsured. Single-payer systems refer to one source of payment for all medical services, usually the government.
Arambula introduced a similar bill last session alongside state Sen. Ricardo Lara, but the final versions would have covered fewer people than they had both originally envisioned. They were narrowed to young adults, between the ages of 19 and 26, and to immigrants over the age of 65. Outgoing Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown refused to fund the provisions in the state budget.
The latest plan would carry an estimated price tag of $3 billion a year, according to California's Legislative Analyst's Office, which would be paid for by the state's general fund. Medicaid is otherwise jointly funded by the state and federal governments.
Critics have questioned whether people in the U.S. illegally would move to California to receive healthcare benefits, which would increase state spending.
Under a Medicaid provision in Obamacare, anyone making less than roughly $17,000 a year qualifies for coverage. That provision, however, doesn't apply to people who are in the U.S. illegally. Emergency departments provide medical care for people regardless of immigration status.
California has already extended Medicaid to people younger than 19 who are in the state illegally.
Thanks to a completely perverse interpretation of the 14th amendment, that baby, as an automatic citizen, will be eligible for any and all benefits for the rest of its life. Then that baby will serve as an anchor to secure citizenship and legal residency for not only its parents but the entire extended family, because "we don't want to separate families \s"
California: The largest insane asylum in the world.
There are so many Mexicans flooding the medical system that many medical facilities are like socialized medicine in California. Lines and slow service. Illegals should be using community clinics.
Illegals and various other indigents routinely use emergency rooms as primary care facilities. They show up in the ER when one of their 10 kids has a sniffle, slowing down the triage for patients who are there for actual emergencies.
What I find most disturbing about California is that every insane policy and social trend that takes root there inevitably takes over the rest of America just a few years later. It takes only about a year or two to spread to liberal urban areas, but within a decade, the rot spreads to all states or to the Federal level. California started the process of treating illegals as a special, protected class of people, and now most of the country is converted to DACA and wailing about how terrible it is to "break up families at the border."
Because of illegals there are far, FAR fewer hospitals in southern CA than there were 20 years ago. They literally ran the hospitals into the ground financially.
My mother, who died in January, was not eligible for MediCal—her Social Security check was just too high. She paid taxes to the US and California for most of her 99-year long life. But I was told that there were no benefits besides Medicare that she was entitled to during her final illness. But California apparently can’t wait to extend benefits denied my mom to people who shouldn’t be in the country or state to begin with, and who pay virtually no taxes at all.
What is our safeguard against a whole state that is a danger to the country?
...who live in the state illegally to receive medical care paid for by the government...
Paid for by the Government? Paid for by stupid arse Calipornia Taxpayers!
Plus when you are standing next to them in line at the pharmacy you don't know what that cough is that they have...tuberculosis or black plague that should have been blocked at the border. I've noticed allot of them wear masks walking around the facilities.
“The latest plan would carry an estimated price tag of $3 billion a year, according to California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office, which would be paid for by the state’s general fund. Medicaid is otherwise jointly funded by the state and federal governments.”
NO it’s paid for by the state’s (stupid) taxpayers and by the nations taxpayers.Time for a France like rebellion.
These days, cut off all federal funding.
I think it was Milton Friedman who's credited with saying you can have open borders OR a welfare state but not both (or something like that).
Certain traitors among us are hell bent on putting that theory to the test.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.