White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt fired back at a reporter on Friday who suggested that illegal immigrants are not receiving taxpayer funded healthcare coverage.
Democrats claimed they voted for the shutdown on Wednesday over their demands to extend tax credits in the Affordable Care Act, though Republicans have argued that Democrats truly want to hand out Medicaid services to illegal immigrants. Leavitt said that the Democrats’ counter-proposal to the Republicans’ continuing resolution (CR) would require Medicaid to pay more for illegal immigrants’ medical care.
“Are you denying that Medicaid money has never gone to illegal aliens in the United States of America? … [The Democrats] inserted a provision to undo a provision in the working families tax cut, the one big, beautiful bill, that ended taxpayer funded healthcare benefits for illegal aliens,” Leavitt said. “The Democrats proposal would require Medicaid to pay more to provide care for illegal aliens than Medicaid does for American patients who are disabled, elderly or children. And this bill would’ve also allowed California to continue a gimmick that funds Medicaid for illegals’ programs. Those are the things that we ended, the Trump administration ended with the passage of the one big, beautiful bill.”
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Leavitt added that Medicaid spending for illegal immigrants nearly tripled under the Biden administration, when illegal border crossings also reached record-highs by surpassing 2 and 3 million encounters in a single fiscal year. Medicaid costs for illegal immigrants’ emergency care rose 142% in the fiscal year 2024.
“And it is an undisputed fact, a fact, that under the Biden administration, illegal aliens were absolutely receiving taxpayer funded healthcare benefits. In fact, in fiscal year 2024, Medicaid costs for emergency services for illegal immigrants skyrocketed by 142% from the previous year to $9.1 billion,” Leavitt continued. “That’s $9.1 billion taxpayer dollars that were going to emergency services for illegals. Between President Trump last full fiscal year in his first administration and Joe Biden’s last full fiscal year, Medicaid spending on emergency services for illegal immigrants nearly tripled. There was an increase of 196% between 2020 and 2024.”
In 2023, Healthcare professionals in Southern California reported that the healthcare system had been “bombarded” with illegal immigrants and caused American citizen patients to endure longer wait times. Denver Health CEO Donna Lynne stated that 8,000 illegal immigrants made 20,000 health visits in 2023, causing the city’s health services to experience over $10 million in unpaid medical services.
“So when an illegal alien goes to the emergency room, who’s paying for it? The American taxpayer,” Leavitt continued.
The counter-proposal seeks to repeal the “big, beautiful bill’s” Title VII, Section B, which pertains to Medicare and efforts to curb waste, fraud and abuse in the system, including the restriction of “Alien Medicaid eligibility” in Sec. 71109, according to Section 2141 of the Democrats’ proposed CR.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Thursday that the Democrats’ counter-proposal would result in taxpayers spending $200 billion on illegal immigrants and other non-citizens. He also said that the Democrats want to repeal a Republican-led reform on California’s loophole that allows taxpayer funded Medicaid for illegal immigrants.
California, Illinois and Minnesota all expanded their state healthcare coverage to include illegal immigrants, which caused each state to experience massive financial strains. California burned through $8.5 billion on immigrant health care in 2024, while Illinois had to spend about $800 million a year.
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