() Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor who oversees Medicaid and Medicare for the Trump administration, welcomes the move by a trio of blue states California, Illinois and Minnesota to freeze or reduce health care benefits for undocumented migrants.
He told “CUOMO” on Friday that some states broadened their public medical programs to include migrants because they could leverage federal dollars to pay for it, but Medicaid is supposed to be reserved for the most vulnerable Americans.
“If we extend it to illegal immigrants without keeping tabs of what those costs are and especially if we have a system that encourages states to do legalized money laundering, to push more money towards able-bodied individuals the dollar doesn’t stretch that far. You end up bankrupting the whole system,” the former TV host said Friday.
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposes suspending new health care enrollment for undocumented adults, although existing patients would continue to receive some coverage.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker would go further, ending his state’s immigrant adult health program, which covers more than 30,000 people, on July 1. Minnesota is making undocumented adults ineligible for health care assistance by the end of the year.
“Taking care of a large population of undocumented folks has become a problem, and states have to manage that,” Oz said.
