You can agree or disagree with what the Republicans have done, but is it too much to ask AP to lay out what they did accurately?
The aversion of some news outlets to describing illegal immigrants as such leads them to write sentences that are confusing or plainly false. Consider this Associated Press story by Tran Nguyen and Devi Shastri.
“At least seven states and the District of Columbia have offered coverage for immigrants since mostly 2020. But three of them have done an about-face. . .”
Wait, what? The rest of the country doesn’t let immigrants participate in Medicaid? Even if they came here legally? Even if they became U.S. citizens?
“. . . ending or limiting coverage for hundreds of thousands of immigrants who aren’t in the U.S. legally in California, Illinois and Minnesota.”
Ah, ok.
“In Illinois, adult immigrants ages 42-64 without legal status have lost their health care to save an estimated $404 million.”
Good, clear sentence.
“All adult immigrants in Minnesota no longer have access to the state program, saving nearly $57 million.”
I think you mean “not all adult immigrants have access any longer” because a subset — the illegal immigrants — have been cut off. The linked story is much better, providing the true story in its first sentence.
“In California, no one will automatically lose coverage, but new enrollments for adults will stop in 2026 to save more than $3 billion over several years.”
Illegal-immigrant adults, that is. The linked AP story has an uninformative headline (“cutting back immigrants’ access to health care”) but again clarifies the story in the first sentence.
“Cuts in all three states were backed by Democratic governors who once championed expanding health coverage to immigrants.”
They may have put it that way, but again, we’re not talking about immigrants in general. We’re talking about illegal immigrants.
“States are also bracing for impact from federal policies. Cuts to Medicaid and other programs in the recently signed massive tax and spending bill include a 10% cut to the federal share of Medicaid expansion costs to states that offer health benefits to immigrants starting October 2027.”
No. Some of the earlier sentences that are misleading on their own could be defended on the ground that other, surrounding sentences were more precise. But this “states that offer health benefits to immigrants” sentence is indefensible. Click the link: The earlier AP story explains, “The proposed bill also targets any immigrants who are living in the country illegally or without documentation. It reduces by 10% the share the federal government pays to states — such as New York or California — that allow those immigrants to sign up for Medicaid.”
You can agree or disagree with what the Republicans have done here, but is it too much to ask AP to lay out what they did accurately?