Republicans and allies of former President Donald Trump are attacking Vice President Kamala Harris on the immigration issue, claiming the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee supported using taxpayer money to offer free medical health insurance to immigrants who’re within the country without legal permission.
Candidates for the Senate and House of Representatives, a Trump-supporting American political motion committee and the Republican National Committee have made similar claims in recent days.
We reached out to the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment on Trump's statement, but neither responded.
The claims are misleading. It is true that Harris advocated for providing public medical health insurance to immigrants within the US no matter their immigration status. During the primary Democratic presidential primary debate in 2019 in Miami Kamala Harris raised her hand when a moderator asked candidates to boost their hands if their government's medical health insurance also covers immigrants who’re within the country illegally.
That doesn’t mean, nonetheless, that Harris explicitly said she supports taxpayer funding of services or that medical health insurance can be free.
PolitiFact has verified similar claims republican And Trump made in 2019 and located it largely false. The moderator didn’t ask Harris and the opposite candidates directly whether their plans would supply the coverage without cost or with taxpayer money, so the claim is baseless.
Recently, Republicans have pointed to statements made by Harris in 2019 during her presidential campaign wherein she was portrayed as a supporter of providing public advantages to immigrants living within the country illegally. Specifically: CNN's Jake Tapper asked Harris whether their Medicare for All plan would cover such immigrants.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee posted an excerpt of the interview on social media platform X on July 23 with the message: “FLASHBACK: Kamala Harris tells Jake Tapper she supports universal health insurance and Medicare-for-all for illegal immigrants.”
But she doesn't say that on this clip. Instead, when asked whether Medicare for All should apply to people living within the country illegally, she responded: “I oppose any policy in our country that denies a person access to public safety, public education or public health care, period.” Tapper didn't take any further questions on the matter.
Medicare for All is a system promoted by some Democrats wherein all Americans would receive their medical health insurance through a government program modeled after the one which currently covers people age 65 and older and the disabled.
Under the Law on emergency medical treatment and occupational safetywhich became law in 1986, all patients, no matter their citizenship or immigration status, are already entitled to treatment in hospital emergency rooms.
Some anti-immigration activists still imagine Harris supports taxpayer-funded medical health insurance advantages for undocumented immigrants.
“Instead of fighting back, she is at least implicitly supporting Medicare for illegal immigrants,” said Joey Chester, a spokesman for Federation for American Immigration Reforma gaggle that wishes to scale back immigration overall. The undeniable fact that she raised her hand in the course of the 2019 debate means her position is to offer taxpayer-funded health care to people who find themselves within the country illegally, he added.
Harris' proposal would have provided comprehensive medical health insurance to all Americans. But not all the things would have been free. She would have allowed Americans to purchase into this system immediately, while expanding it over ten years. The plan she recommend was just like current Medicare, where people should purchase plans administered by the federal government or private insurers.
During a 10-year transition period, newborns and uninsured people can be routinely enrolled. But their proposal left open tips on how to finance insurance for recipients living within the U.S. without authorization.
Harris wrote in 2019 Article on Medium The “good options” for financing Medicare for All plans included income-based employer contributions, higher taxes on the richest one percent of Americans, taxing Wall Street deals, and savings from accelerating health care reforms and changes in provider payments.
California, where Harris served as attorney general from 2011 to 2017, this 12 months became the primary state to expand Medicaid eligibility to all qualified immigrants no matter immigration status, phasing it in over several years. Medicaid is a federal health program that gives medical health insurance to low-income and disabled adults.
California's program for immigrants is funded almost entirely by state funds, in accordance with the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonprofit research organization. Federal law generally prohibits states from using federal funds to pay for medical health insurance for immigrants living within the country without legal permission.
However, taxpayers may bear the brunt of unpaid health care when people without medical health insurance, including illegal immigrants, seek treatment in hospitals or other providers. The costs are passed on to other consumers in the shape of upper prices and place a burden on state and native budgets.
“Government payments are the primary source of coverage for providers' costs for caring for the uninsured, and these government payments are ultimately funded by taxpayers,” says Laurel Lucia, health care program director on the University of California-Berkeley's Center for Labor Research and Education Center, which provides research and policy information.
Immigrants who’re within the country illegally also pay billions in taxes.
“If she supports subsidized health insurance for noncitizens, I would think that's a good thing, not a bad thing,” says Sabrina Corlette, co-director of the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy. “Many of the new immigrants are taking care of our children, our elderly, working in hospitality, food service and food production. Isn't it in our best interest for these people to have access to good health care?”
Our verdict
Republicans tried to portray Harris as an extremist on immigration, claiming she supports free, taxpayer-funded medical health insurance for immigrants within the country illegally.
Harris hinted in 2019 that her Medicare-for-All proposal would cover all immigrants no matter their status. She has also said she would oppose any policy that will deny anyone within the country access to “public health care.” But health policy and immigration experts say there isn’t a evidence that she would offer medical health insurance without cost and have it paid for by other taxpayers. Immigrants without legal residency also pay taxes.
Harris has not explicitly advocated free, tax-funded medical health insurance for immigrants living illegally within the United States.
Trump's statement comprises a grain of truth, but ignores vital facts that will suggest otherwise. We rate this claim as mostly false.
©2024 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Originally published:
image credit : www.mercurynews.com