Free Health Care for Illegal Aliens Is a Budget Buster for Blue States CDC/pexels

Several deep blue states have moved to extend healthcare to illegal aliens, but costs have exploded and enrollments have raced far past the numbers lawmakers expected, causing budget disasters across the board.

In 2019, California became the first deep blue state to allow illegal aliens to enroll in the state’s healthcare program. Since then, the costs have wildly spun out of control. This year it was reported that the costs of the program was more than three billion dollars above the estimates. Now some are asking why.

“We should not bear these costs. Period. But especially in a budget crisis,” California Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego) said in March, according to the Lost Angeles Times.

Elon Musk also blasted the state over the out-of-control program, saying on Fox News that healthcare is “a mechanism by which the Democrats attract and retain illegal immigrants by essentially paying them to come here and then turning them into voters.”

“Democrats are pushing hard to maximize payments to illegals, e.g. free luxury hotels in New York and free medical care for illegals in California, as that is their current and future voter base,” Musk added in a post on X.

As in California, Illinois has also found itself in a political pickle over healthcare for illegals. In February, opponents of the free healthcare policy for illegals revealed that the cost to taxpayers reached $1.6 billion since 2020, a number far higher than Democrats estimated when they proposed the program.

At the time, State Senate Republican leader John Curran blasted the Democrats, saying that the program “spent well in excess of 200% more than what was estimated in budgets and in appropriations,” Fox News reported in February.

Curran further insisted that the program was entirely unmanageable.

“Thousands of people were allowed to sign up for free healthcare for years on the state taxpayer dime that should not have been eligible under the parameters laid out for this program, and the governor failed to even seek federal reimbursement when eligible on certain services for years, leaving federal dollars on the table,” he said.

Colorado has also been socked with cost overruns and higher numbers of those enrolling than expected.

In March, reports revealed that costs to taxpayers for the Centennial State’s healthcare for illegals program had spiked more than 600 percent after the latest wave of enrollees.

The program dubbed Cover All Coloradans, put into effect in 2022, was estimated to cost Coloradans about $2 million. But only a few years later, that cost had soared to $16 million and is expected to double to $32 million by next year, Axios reported.

Congressman Gabe Evans (R-CO) blasted the Democrat-led program and insisted that tax dollars should be going to lawful beneficiaries, not illegals.

This month, Republicans in Minnesota are blasting state Democrats for the same problems now bedeviling the Gopher State that are happening in so many other left-wing states offering healthcare to illegals.

On Monday, Minnesota State Senator Steve Drazkowski published an op-ed asking why illegal immigrants are getting taxpayer-funded healthcare in the first place.

Sen. Drazkowski noted that enrollment in MinnesotaCare is nearly triple what the Democrats claimed it would be. He outlined that he program’s costs will quickly zoom past $1.3 billion in the next two years.

“Taxpayers are not a bottomless well. Before we hand out benefits to those who aren’t here legally, we need to take care of our own,” Drazkowski exclaimed.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, X at WTHuston, or Truth Social at @WarnerToddHuston.

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