Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) on Tuesday unveiled legislation that would protect Medicaid to ensure that the entitlement program can only be used by Americans, not illegal aliens.
“Providing taxpayer-funded Medicaid to illegal immigrants is against the law and further incentivizes more illegal crossings at our border. Worse, it hurts elderly, disabled, and vulnerable Americans who depend on the program,” Hudson, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told Breitbart News in a written statement.
Hudson continued, “We must stop liberal states from forcing American taxpayers to foot the bill for illegals’ healthcare costs and ensure we are taking care of our citizens.”
Hudson introduced the Protect Medicaid Act, a bill that would clarify the federal statute to ensure federal funds cannot be used by states to implement Medicaid coverage for illegal aliens.
The Tar Heel State conservative introduced the bill as many Democrat states have moved to expand Medicaid coverage to cover illegal aliens by exploiting loopholes in the system using federal funds.
Medicaid’s statute currently bars the use of federal funds provide Medicaid care to illegal aliens; however, some states can exploit a loophole by using federal funds to administer and implement benefit status for illegal aliens while using state dollars to pay for the benefits.
Medicaid is a joint federal-sate program that uses both federal and state funds to cover eligible low-income Americans.
In late 2023, California expanded Medi-Cal, its Medicaid program, to accept all illegal aliens regardless of age.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) is cosponsoring the bill and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) is leading the Senate version of the bill.
“Medicaid exists to provide a lifeline for vulnerable Americans—pregnant women, children, seniors, and individuals with disabilities—not to subsidize illegal immigration. States trying to exploit loopholes to funnel taxpayer dollars toward benefits for those in the country illegally are not just mismanaging funds, they’re jeopardizing care for the millions of Americans who depend on Medicaid,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) said. “The Protect Medicaid Act ensures that federal funds aren’t misused to prop up these nefarious policies.”
Studies have shown that increasing benefits for illegal aliens only incentivizes more illegal immigration.
Breitbart News’s John Binder reported in 2019 that Linda J. Blumberg, a health policy fellow at the Urban Institute, argued a single-payer healthcare system such as Medicare for All, providing free taxpayer-funded health care to illegal aliens, would drive a migration of “people with serious health problems to the United States.”
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimated that illegal immigration costs the country’s hospital systems more than $23 billion annually.
“Working as a doctor in California, I saw that free health care is a magnet for illegal immigration. We should focus on making America healthy again instead of straining our medical system and burdening American taxpayers. Attempting to provide free health care to the world is not sustainable. Compassion that cannot be sustained is not compassion,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the chairman of the Senate health committee, said in a statement.
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on X @SeanMoran3.
