As presidential candidates debate whether illegal immigrants should receive government health benefits, a recent study released the estimate of how much it would cost to provide healthcare for illegal immigrants.
According to their analysis, taxpayers have to pay up to $23 billion per year to provide coverage.
Democratic presidential candidates advocating healthcare for illegal immigrants has become a must-have position, which is a sharp change from a few years ago.
Candidates’ support became evident at a presidential debate in June, to which President Donald Trump tweeted, “That’s the end of that race!”
At an MSNBC Democratic presidential primary debate, co-moderator, Savannah Guthrie, asked 10 candidates to raise their hands if their healthcare plan would cover undocumented immigrants.
Candidates present were Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Andrew Yang, Pete Buttigieg, Kirsten Gillibrand, Michael Bennet, Marianne Williamson, John Hickenlooper, and Eric Swalwell.
“This is a show of hands question and hold them up so people can see. Raise your hand if your government plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants,” Guthrie said to the candidates.
All raised their hands.
“It’s the humane thing to do,” former Vice President Joe Biden said.
President Donald Trump reacted on Twitter, “All Democrats just raised their hands for giving millions of illegal aliens unlimited healthcare. How about taking care of American Citizens first!? That’s the end of that race!”
All Democrats just raised their hands for giving millions of illegal aliens unlimited healthcare. How about taking care of American Citizens first!? That’s the end of that race!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 28, 2019
Although candidates endorsed giving government health benefits to illegal immigrants, the discussions of how much it would cost and how it would play out, in reality, were not discussed.
In response to the advocacy, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) published a study to inform the possible cost.
The study estimates that there are 4.9 million uninsured illegal immigrants with incomes low enough to qualify for health benefits. The cost would be about $10 billion to $23 billion per year. The average cost for an illegal immigrant would be about $4,600 per year.
The group released another report, calculating that legal and illegal immigrants who use Medicaid already cost more per family than native-born Americans.
“Any serious debate on providing health care coverage to those in the country illegally requires a cost estimate,” said Steven Camarota, research director at the organization. He added that his findings were a reminder that “tolerating illegal immigration creates a significant burden for taxpayers.”
“Numbers aside, the fact that presidential candidates are advocating spending billions of dollars on people who are in the country illegally is significant in its own right,” the report concludes.
