Trust Politico to report the obvious with an appropriate headline.
You mean, if we make an effort to give our taxpayer dollars only to those who are entitled to them, we save money? Say it ain't so!
DeSantis signed a law last year directing hospitals that accept Medicaid to ask patients about their immigration status when they seek treatment. While the law does not force patients to provide hospitals with an answer, immigrant rights groups feared the mandate would scare migrants away from seeking urgent medical attention. The DeSantis administration and other Florida Republicans say any marked decreases in spending are signs his immigration crackdown is working.
Florida’s Emergency Medical Assistance program for undocumented immigrants has seen a 54 percent drop in expenditures billed to Medicaid this year — with less than two months remaining in the fiscal year — since the state immigration law took effect, according to a POLITICO analysis. Thomas Kennedy of the Florida Immigrant Coalition said while there is no concrete evidence that the drop in Medicaid spending is a result of the law, which took effect in July 2023. there have been other signs of fallout.
“Obviously, there’s been somewhat of an exodus of migrants in Florida,” Kennedy said. “When this was all going through — we had warned about the exacerbated work[force] shortages and the distressed industries — we said this would be a bad idea.”
Federal law bars undocumented immigrants from Medicaid eligibility, even if they meet other requirements. But federal law also requires that states authorize limited Medicaid coverage for migrants facing a medical emergency, including dialysis, a pregnant woman delivering a baby or trauma.
. . .
Data provided to POLITICO by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services show $148.4 million in state and federal Medicaid dollars went toward emergency coverage for immigrants in Florida in the year before the state’s new immigration law took effect. As of May 3, $67 million has gone toward emergency coverage this year. With two months left in the fiscal year that number will rise, but the state is still on track for a dramatic decrease in spending.
Thomas Kennedy doubtless has allies who believe that spending taxpayer dollars on those who are not entitled to them is "a bad idea". Personally, I wish we had similar legislation in Texas. Why should taxpayers be forced to subsidize those who broke the law to be here?
Peter
9 comments:
Anyone spending federal funds on illegal aliens should be prosecuted for "harboring fugitives" and "aiding and abetting", and all funding should come with mandatory real-time reporting requirements to ICE, even for emergencies. We currently have to report child and elder abuse, communicable disease, animal bites, and assaults, by law, so checking and adding illegal alien status would be no burden whatsoever.
The current rogue admin won't do jack-all about it, but they won't be in power forever, and a 10-year statute of limitations for criminal prosecutions under such a law should put quite a damper on the enthusiasm for either crime. Adding the provision that any hospital caught doing it would be banned from receiving any federal healthcare funding for 20 years per offense would drive the final spike through the heart of caring for - and paying taxpayer money for - illegal aliens.
One or two hospital CEOs getting frog-marched to prison one fine morning would end all but the most urgent medical care for illegals in about 0.2 seconds, and end one of the free rides they get the minute they plop themselves here. And no small number of hospital ERs would see a sharp drop in wait times and utilization as primary care by that demographic, which would be a yuuuuuuuuge improvement in patient care for everyone else actually entitled to be here.
Congress could fix this nationwide in about 5 minutes, forever.
Which is why it will never happen. A bigger bunch of tough-talking double-dealing spineless doucheweasels you'll never find.
The medical attention might not scare off the illegals, but the BILL sure might!!!
I don't know if it is still the same, but a few years ago, many hospitals near the Mexican border closed, due to the economic destruction of illegal aliens. It was too easy to cross the border, take advantage of free healthcare, and return home without any expenses except for travel. Locals just had to suffer, since many couldn't afford to make the longer journeys for healthcare.
Subsidize illegal aliens? Who would have thought this is a bad idea?
This country is in deep doo-doo.
You are established in your field. You have internet presence, you even have a nom de plume.
The question is what are you doing about it? How are you raising the voice to what you have written here?
Lest anyone think this is only to Aesop, it is not. It is to every person. Me including ded. Especially me for I am the one I have most control over. So to each of you.
Thinking it won't change, thinking it's all over, well, you're right. Those negative waves prove it to be so.
We are in deep enough to drown. What a crock.
A friend who worked in an executive position at a health insurance company in Orange County, CA said, of the period of approx. 2009-2011, fifteen hospitals in that area had closed due to monies lost by treating illegals.
Maybe be others can vouch to the veracity of that.
My opinion is that hospitals have sunk already hundreds of millions into facilities and staffing before even treating patients. The operation of a hospital has to be in the hundreds of millions. Then include the federal funds. So think what amount it would take to close a hospital.
Why should taxpayers be forced to subsidize those who broke the law to be here?
Because you, the average taxpayer, is a Communist, and believe "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is the proper moral value.
It only takes a couple of percent to close a hospital.
And I have met, face-to-face, with half a dozen congressweasels, including mine, about this and other issues.
When there's no chance of getting it enacted, they're all for it.
When they're the party in power, they never heard of you.
(2A and fiscal responsibility folks, stop me if you've heard this one...)
As I said on Wilder's blog, this ends one way: bullet holes in illegals.
Not advocating, just observing.
It's going to happen, because they've monkeywrenched anything lesser.
"When you make peaceful revolution impossible, you make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK
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