SACRAMENTO, Calif.—California is the first U.S. state to offer free health care to all low-income illegal immigrants, after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a $307.9 billion budget on June 30.
The allocation will give an estimated 764,000 people free health care coverage at a cost of $2.7 billion annually beginning in 2024, under the budget’s expansion of the state’s Medi-Cal coverage.
“This is what being ‘pro-life’ ACTUALLY looks like,” Newsom wrote on Twitter on June 30.
Across the country, federal and state governments provide free health care to low-income residents through Medicaid, but illegal immigrants currently are excluded. Newsom’s provision will make California the only state to offer free health care regardless of citizenship status.
An estimated 92 percent of Californians have some form of health care, but that will change once the budget is in full swing and illegal immigrants—who make up the largest group of people in the state without health care—receive it under the expansion.
Hailed by immigrant advocates and proponents of universal health care, some critics worry that free health care will further incentivize illegal crossings at the southern border at a time when deaths among those crossing are increasing.
Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, told The Associated Press the expansion of Medi-Cal is “a magnet for those who are not legally authorized to enter the country.”
“I think many of us are very sympathetic to the immigrant community, but we really wish we had better control of who enters this nation and this state.”
