Democrats went through with it last night — they shut down the government. With the midnight deadline passed, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his caucus chose to grind Washington to a halt rather than drop their demand for taxpayer-funded healthcare for illegal immigrants.
President Donald Trump and Republican leaders had warned for days that Democrats were holding national security and military readiness hostage to force the reinstatement of Medicaid benefits for illegal aliens. Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson blasted Schumer for putting “free healthcare for illegals” ahead of paychecks for U.S. troops.
Democrats are, of course, pushing back by claiming that illegal immigrants aren’t eligible for Obamacare.
And so on. Left-wing influencers and the legacy media have also pushed these claims.
They’re also wrong.
Just because illegal immigrants aren’t technically eligible for Obamacare subsidies doesn’t mean they weren’t getting them anyway. In fact, California became the first state to offer health insurance to all illegal immigrants in December 2023.
“Starting Jan. 1, [2024], all undocumented immigrants, regardless of age, will qualify for Medi-Cal, California's version of the federal Medicaid program for people with low incomes,” ABC News reported at the time. “Previously, undocumented immigrants were not qualified to receive comprehensive health insurance but were allowed to receive emergency and pregnancy-related services under Medi-Cal as long as they met eligibility requirements, including income limits and California residency in 2014.”
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California isn’t alone in handing out taxpayer-funded health benefits to illegal immigrants. According to Newsweek, a total of 14 states have programs that provided some form of health coverage to illegals: California, New York, Illinois, Washington, New Jersey, Oregon, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Rhode Island, Maine, and Vermont. Even Washington, D.C., is on the list. In other words, it’s not just one radical blue state; it’s a growing club of Democrat-run states (and Utah, for some reason) that had healthcare for illegals as official policy.
Here’s the bottom line: state healthcare programs aren’t just funded by state tax dollars — they’re heavily bankrolled by Washington. Medicaid is a federal-state partnership, and the federal government typically covers 50% to 75% of the cost. The One Big Beautiful Bill finally closed the loopholes that let states hand out free healthcare to people who aren’t supposed to be eligible — like illegal immigrants. Democrats fought to reopen that loophole, and when they didn’t get their way, they shut down the government.
So when Republicans say Democrats shut down the government to give free healthcare to illegals, that’s not spin. It’s the plain truth.
The Schumer Shutdown is all about taxpayer-funded healthcare for illegal immigrants. No matter how much the legacy media tries to hide that fact, PJ Media will expose the truth. Join PJ Media VIP—your support keeps us fighting back. Use promo code FIGHT for 60% off. Don’t wait, join today!