A cross-sectional analysis of emergency Medicaid spending using data from the 2022 Medicaid Budget and Expenditure System found that that of the 38 states plus Washington, D.C., was nominal compared to overall spending.
There are confounding factors. Not all states allow it, and 11 did not report emergency Medicaid spending for illegal immigrants, and some, like California, now provide free health care to anyone regardless of legal status, meaning the $9 billion in emergency care for illegal immigrants in 2024 is 70% owed to that state. Total Medicaid costs for illegal immigrants during 2021-2024 were $16 billion, but this document did not include other public expenditures.
$9 billion is less than 1% of total Medicaid spending. Interest on the U.S. debt alone is almost as high as Medicaid spending, so 1% Medicaid cuts make a nominal difference to the federal government’s burn rate. The real problem is that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was invoked to address the 700,000 people who had too much income for Medicaid, but private healthcare companies refused to insure because of the risk. However, in 2024, the number of people covered by the ACA amounted to 50,000,000 subsidized people. That illegal immigrants spend more money per capita in California than citizens receive is a topic of political conversation, but it is obviously what Californians want. However, at least 36 other states do not want to pay for California’s good works.
Europe is similarly panicked about the cost of its social services. Their solution is to make it very difficult to get citizenship. An illegal immigrant who saved a French child was rewarded with citizenship in France. That’s basically what you have to do if your parents weren’t French. There was no other way he wouldn’t have been deported if he had been captured any other way.
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