The State of California had been heading this way for years:
- In 2015, California began allowing undocumented children to join Medi-Cal, the state-funded Medicaid system, adding at least 250,000 to the rolls.
- In 2019, eligibility was broadened to cover those younger than 26, adding another 536,000.
- In May 2022 it was broadened again to cover all people aged 50 and over, adding 235,000.
And on Sunday, June 26, Governor Gavin Newsome announced the ultimate goal had been reached, adding another 700,000 or so to cover all those undocumented between the ages of 26 and 49, at an additional yearly cost of $2.6 billion. The state has thus become the first state in the union to provide state-funded healthcare benefits to all residents, regardless of immigration status.
Those promises sound great to the uninsured, but poor Californians, legal and otherwise, are finding out there’s a catch: it’s one thing to have a card; it’s another to find a doctor. A 2015 piece by NPR titled “California’s Medicaid Program Fails To Ensure Access To Doctors” cited a scathing state audit that found many of those theoretically covered can’t find a health provider who will take them on. The CalMatters website estimates that the state’s physician shortage will continue to worsen so that by 2030, California will be in “dire need” of more practitioners.
Of course, no one really knows how many illegals actually reside in California (or for that matter anywhere else in the U.S.). The Department of Homeland Security estimates 2.9 million. The numbers quoted above add up to less than 2 million, so someone is wrong, but that hardly matters. With a move like this the state has enlarged and made even more friendly the welcome mat it has put out to the world, so the number is sure to keep growing.
So does, incidentally, the number of companies leaving the state. A report by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University found that between January 2018 and July 2021 no fewer than 265 companies moved their headquarters out of California. In addition, 249,239 individuals left the state as well, many of them headed for Texas.
Earlier this year, Reason magazine (“How High Will California’s Taxes Go Before There’s No One Left To Tax?“) cited IRS figures showing that, from 2018 through 2019, California lost over 71,000 taxpayers and over $8.8 billion in adjusted gross income. One indicator of the U-Haul’s 2021 data had California as the worst in the country for net outward migration.
Governor Newsome and his far-left fellow travelers in the state legislature are creating a huge, impoverished welfare state promising impossible benefits that can never be paid for and in large part will never be delivered. But it feels so good to signal such virtue!
For more, see Breitbart.