Dems propose CR including Obamacare subsidies for illegal immigrants

On Friday, Democrats in the Senate proposed a continuing resolution that would have included healthcare subsidies for illegal immigrants. The proposal was voted down 46 to 52.

Despite many Democrats arguing the proposal would do no such thing, Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna admitted as such when he appeared on Fox Business but called the amount a “small portion.”

The proposed CR from the Democrats, Senate Bill 2882, was set to remove provisions passed into law with President Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill.” That provision curbed federal funding from going to cover medical expenses for illegal immigrants in the US.

Section 2141 of the bill from the Democrat proposal would have repealed Section 71110 of Trump’s package passed earlier this year, which put more responsibility on states to cover emergency Medicaid expenses from illegal immigrants.

Federal law has long required that Medicaid pay for emergency medical services for immigrants regardless of immigration status if necessary. States have had to cover these Medicaid expenses, however, where states adopted what is called the Obamacare adult expansion, states could take reimbursements from the federal government to cover the expenses.

Obamacare set a floor of 90 percent of these expenses being eligible to be reimbursed by the federal government.

However, as the Heritage Foundation points out in a summary of the impact the proposal has to cover medical expenses for illegal immigrants, the Big Beautiful Bill had reduced the Federal Medicaid Match Rate for Emergency Medicaid “from a federal enhanced match rate of 90 percent to the standard federal match rate for each state.”

The standard federal match rates for reimbursements, however, are much lower than 90 percent, meaning the Democrats were pushing to increase the amount of federal funds going to cover the medical expenses of illegal immigrants.

Additionally, the Democrat proposal would have reversed a provision from the Big Beautiful Bill that narrowed who is eligible for Medicaid benefits to US citizens and lawful permanent residents. Previous to the bill, “qualified aliens” such as those who were paroled into the US or claimed to seeking asylum were able to obtain these.

Under the Biden administration, those who were allowed asylum as well as paroled into the US were widely expanded. Something that the Trump administration has been reversing.