in World News California Spent Nearly $10B on Migrant Health Care
by Armstrong Economics, Martin Armstrong
California has the largest deficit in the nation under FAILED Governor Gavin Newsom. California Legislature’s budget set the figure at $46.8 billion, while the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) believes the deficit is an astounding $68 billion. State revenue is on the decline. Businesses and citizens alike have fled Newsom’s oppressive taxes. The government continues to create endless spending packages that do not benefit Californians. A recent report revealed a source of California’s woes—migrant health care.
“In the current year, to cover undocumented individuals in Medi-Cal, we’re spending $9.5 billion total funds,” replied a CDOF official, who said $8.4 billion of that comes from the state’s general fund. Hospitals do not turn patients away and non-taxpaying, non-citizens, are taking advantage of the health care system that is struggling to maintain the new surplus of patients.
Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital CEO Dr. Elaine Batchlor noted that state funding projected around 30,000 patients annually to her 30-bed emergency room department. By 2023, that figure quadrupled with 76% of patients being on Medi-Cal. “We lose money on every one of those patient visits—a significant amount,” said Batchelor in a statement. “As the volume grew and continues to grow, we began to lose more and more money.”
The state is spending nearly $10 BILLION on health care costs for migrants at the expense of Californians who are already facing record-high taxation. All of these proposed state budgets were estimated before the wildfires. California Budget and Policy Center stated federal spending in California is estimated to be $171 billion this fiscal year, which is over one-third of the total $493 billion state and federal budget for the state. Again, they did not factor in the cost of rebuilding after the devastating fires.
Governor Newsom recently allocated $25 million to fight the Department of Justice to ensure migrants could continue to leech off of his constituents. Newsom would like to turn California into a sanctuary state for all migrants. His policies are the precise reason that capital is fleeing the state. He expanded Medi-Cal to include illegal migrants, with an expected 700,000 new beneficiaries. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) believed the total cost to subsidize migrants was $31 billion annually as of 2023, but the true cost is far higher.