Colorado ‘Innovation’ Opens Obamacare to Illegal Aliens
During his 2009 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama insisted that the Affordable Care Act “would not apply to those who are here illegally.” Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., stood up and yelled: “You lie!” Turns out the loudmouth was right.
Exploiting a “pass through” provision in the Obamacare law, the Biden administration and the state of Colorado are moving to furnish taxpayer-subsidized healthcare to illegal aliens. Over the next five years, the federal government will pump $1.6 billion into Colorado’s Obamacare exchanges. Other states will inevitably follow the money with their own “innovation waivers” to benefit illegal aliens under Section 1332 of the healthcare act.
Colorado officials aim to enroll about 10,000 migrants by next year, with more to come. An estimated 300,000 reside in the state.
Democrat Gov. Jared Polis has already signed legislation making pregnant illegal aliens and their children eligible for Medicaid beginning in 2025. That law will cost U.S. taxpayers nearly $30 million a year, as the federal government covers most of the fees.
“So even if you don’t reside in Colorado, didn’t vote for Polis and do not want illegal aliens receiving any inducements to relocate to the United States, you will still be paying for their medical care,” fumed an editorial in Law Enforcement Today.
The ballooning expense of illegal-alien healthcare is anything but “affordable” for American taxpayers. In 2017, FAIR reported that states and localities spent $12.1 billion on medical services for illegal aliens. Today’s tab is much higher as America’s illegal population has soared to 15.5 million on President Joe Biden’s watch.
(Team Biden added to the burgeoning medical bills last year by blocking public-charge laws, which had required legal immigrants to certify they would not be dependent on government assistance.)
The bad faith and fiscal recklessness of this administration – and the Centennnial State’s knavish “innovators” – were called out by Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., who noted, “While Americans suffer at the pump, Biden gives their tax dollars to illegal aliens. This is one more episode of the Biden administration’s almost unbelievable commitment to putting the needs of Americans behind everyone else.”