California Extending Taxpayer-Funded Health Coverage to Even More Illegals
“If you build it, they will come.”
If the old adage holds any water, it is no wonder Pew Research Center reported in 2019 that the state of California is home to the largest population of illegal immigrants in the United States, accounting for approximately one in five of nation’s estimated illegal migrants.
Liberal Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Golden State’s radical left Democratic legislature have built just the type of ostentatious and inclusive welfare state to bring such a population.
And Newsom once again rang the metaphorical dinner bell Friday, announcing a more than 350-page 2020 state spending plan that will expand government health care coverage to more of California’s illegal immigrants than ever before.
Governor @GavinNewsom‘s proposed 2020-21 budget addresses the affordability crisis, invests in emergency response to confront homelessness & wildfires, promotes opportunity & more, while continuing to build reserves. #CaliforniaForAll#CAbudget ▶️ https://t.co/jhBB59NnD0 pic.twitter.com/SD65ppmXVp
— Office of the Governor of California (@CAgovernor) January 10, 2020
“It’s often said that budgets are statements of values,” Newsom wrote in a letter to the state legislature affixed to the plan. “In America’s most populous and productive state, our state Budget is more than that. It is a blueprint for a better quality of life and brighter future for millions of individuals striving and succeeding together.”
“California is showing the nation and the world what big-hearted, effective governance looks like,” the progressive governor later added.
According to The Associated Press, however, that “big-hearted, effective governance” includes blowing some of the state’s rainy day cash on full health care coverage for illegal immigrants 65 and older under the government-run Medi-Cal program.
This will reportedly add an estimated 27,000 people to the state’s Medicare-like programs.
A notable anti-Trump governor, Newsom has long championed the cause of illegal immigrants within the state, publicly decrying the president’s efforts to uphold federal immigration law and warning illegal residents within the state to “know their rights” as national Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids loomed large last summer.
In fact, Newsom and his Democratic coalition made California the first state in the country last year to provide full, tax-payer funded health care to illegal immigrants, adding more than 130,000 low-income migrants age 25 and younger to the same plan, according to NPR.
Not everyone is impressed.
Other than leaving 125,000+ homeless human beings out on the streets of California to suffer, what are these “Values” you speak of?
Your policies are garbage and only hurt California.#RecallGavinNewsom pic.twitter.com/Rd5NShRfgV
— Kevin Dalton (@NextLAMayor) January 1, 2020
THE REALITY OF HOMELESSNESS: California has completely disincentivized the homeless to get off the streets pic.twitter.com/I7gKnOgBFY
— edmund dantes (@Edantes112) December 22, 2019
Meanwhile, housing insecurity has “ballooned” within the state, according to NPR, with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development suggesting more than 150,000 state residents are currently homeless.
Seventy-two percent of that homeless population also lacks any sufficient shelter to speak of and homeless encampments — and their myriad impacts on local communities — have begun to plague California’s major cities.
Perhaps with all this sanctimonious talk of “values,” the California governor has forgotten the meaning of the word “priorities” — one he would do well to familiarize himself with as an elected official in the United States.
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