Outrageous Government-Funded Incentives

Floor Speech

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Mr. HARIDOPOLOS. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Knott for yielding and for holding this hearing.

Mr. Speaker, these are the kind of conversations the American public needs to hear. They need to understand the impact that illegal immigration is having on our country and how it undercuts the rule of law and really undercuts those people who truly want to play by the rules and enter the United States in a legal fashion.

It is frustrating when we can bring so many bright, conscientious people who want to come into the United States, yet they are deprived of these opportunities because of the long line that exists because of the challenges we have with illegal immigration.

I very much appreciate the Congressman leading the charge on this and bringing in some of us who have experience with Medicaid to talk about the impacts that it has on our individual States.

As we know, Medicaid is designed to help our most vulnerable citizens--seniors, veterans, kids, low-income families, and especially the disabled. Today, that lifeline is being strained by illegal immigration and open-door policies.

While Democrats and sanctuary States deny the problem, the data is clear. Let's be clear that every dollar spent on illegal immigration is a dollar taken from a senior, a veteran, a child, and a family struggling to pay the bills.

For the past 4 years, the pattern has been very clear. Migrants cross the border and surrender to authorities. They repeat carefully rehearsed lines, provided by NGOs, to meet the bare minimum threshold for asylum. They are released into the country and set a court date years in the future. They will begin to actually receive healthcare benefits at the expense of taxpayers, who have already been hard hit by higher prices for basic things like gas, food, and rent.

The burden is real. From 2017 to 2023, the Federal and State Governments spent $27 billion on emergency Medicaid for noncitizens, according to the CBO. Also, according to the CBO, around $18 billion came directly from Federal taxpayers, and I mean every single American.

Under the Biden-Harris years, Medicaid spending on illegal immigrants surged 124 percent higher than under President Trump. In 2021 alone, $7 billion was spent on emergency care for illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, Democrats in Washington and blue States are demanding we actually pay even more.

To put this into perspective, as the Congressman from North Carolina (Mr. Knott) mentioned, I am from the State of Florida. We actually audited how much we spent on Medicaid emergency care last year. It was $660 million for hospital care for illegal immigrants, according to the Agency for Health Care Administration in Florida. That was $660 million that was intended to be spent on healthcare for American citizens, or to maybe move the dollars around for education or roads, or to help our environment.

Instead, $660 million was spent on people who came here illegally. That is a substantial amount of money, and we will never get it back. Again, it rewards bad behavior.

How the system works is very frustrating. Mr. Speaker, if you pay taxes in America, you are paying for illegal immigrants to get healthcare, whether you like it or not. Federal law requires Medicaid to cover emergency healthcare, period. That is just the law. If they go to the emergency room and that person qualifies, the American public pays for it. States, of course, pick up the costs initially, but the Federal Government reimburses somewhere between 59 and 73 percent of those costs to the States.

American taxpayer dollars are being spent on this program, whether we like it or not.

Reimbursement quietly channels billions of Federal dollars into care for illegal immigration through State Medicaid programs. States like California and New York are actually the most abusive of this law. These sanctuary States choose to allow illegal immigrants to receive State Medicaid programs and then send the bill to Washington, D.C., for all taxpayers to pay for it. It is not like they are being generous with just their taxpayer dollars. It is spread across the entire system in the United States.

States like California and New York manipulate provider taxes and use creative accounting to maximize Federal reimbursement, thus shifting more of the burden to taxpayers across the country.

Here is the gall of it all. New York even promotes free medical care for illegal immigrants with official State flyers, encouraging them to use emergency services. That is pretty rich.

I mean, think about it. They are saying they are just using their State tax dollars. That is not the truth. They are promoting, with taxpayer dollars, this push to have, again, other people pick up the costs.

This is not some federalism deal where it is handled by one State. This is, again, real life in that someone else will pay the bill. Thus, they are being generous with other people's money.

To counter this myth that the Democrats are trying to push, that illegal immigration does not cost taxpayer dollars--it is just not true. This is why I want people to look closely at what Medicaid is.

Again, every Republican that I talk to--and I go across the country to talk about this issue--wants to provide Medicaid for seniors in nursing homes. We want to provide it for pregnant women. We want to provide it for kids. We want to provide it for the disabled. Mr. Speaker, when that relationship is upset by having people here illegally, you are actually potentially putting Medicaid programs at risk.

For those who really want to study the issue, there is a water balloon effect here. Medicaid really doesn't reimburse doctors for their care. It causes private healthcare costs to go up. Imagine the ire that so many people have.

Mr. Speaker, if you talk to a family of four and talk to the parents, they are going to say, for a family of four, they pay like $1,500 to $2,000 a month for private healthcare. Yet, a person who comes into the country illegally pays zero in healthcare because they get Medicaid services where there is not even a copay.

That is the ironic part about this. They break the law and are rewarded for it. That undercuts the American Dream.

People start thinking logically: Why do I play by the rules? Maybe I will manipulate a form so that I qualify for Medicaid, and they might never check it again. Mr. Speaker, that is happening today.

People are even objecting to the idea that we check to see if the person still truly qualifies for Medicaid; that is theft from other taxpayers.

So as the CBO confirmed, $18 billion in Federal spending was put on emergency care, and these are just the facts that play out.

Again, let's have the honest conversation. If the other side wants to fund it, then say it; but don't say it is not happening or bury it under the typical bureaucratic or political doublespeak. These are the conversations we need to have.

Just so you know, Mr. Speaker, in the policy that we are looking at today where we are going to let's say reconsider the budget, they are going to spend $45 billion for basically jails for illegal immigrants who come across, because if we don't have that jail space or the detention centers as they are looking at asylum, then they go into the country. That means they might not have a court case for a few years.

Let's just think logically here, Mr. Speaker, there are 10 million people.

How many judges, lawyers, public defenders, bailiffs, and other folks do you need to actually have 10 million court cases in their version of due process?

As our lead prosecutor today, Mr. Knott, will tell us: The law is simple. If you came here illegally, then the only thing you are allowed is a ticket out of here.

Let's be honest about immigration. This is about the rule of law. I want to bring in a lot of folks. I want to have an immigration system that works and they actually sign up, they get online, and we find out who these folks are. Just like they check us on an airline, they check them at the border.

Instead, this previous administration literally said: Here is the script. Tell them this, you will get the court case in years to come, and you can go into the interior of the country.

That is a double standard.

I applaud Congressman Knott for taking this opportunity to talk about this in a real way and my friends from North Carolina talk about how it impacts every one of us. It is taking from the system, causing people to pay more for insurance, and undercutting the rule of law.

That is why we had an election last year, and the voice was good. The President said that he would stop this crazy idea because we are already $1 trillion in debt year by year and $37 trillion in debt overall.

This is common sense, and the President has finally stood up for those people who have been left behind the last 4 years.

So, Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Knott very much for taking on this real issue. It is the kind of discussion we need to have. If the other side feels that we have not been telling the whole story, then come up and have the debate. We would love to see it.

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