Will Harris offer health coverage to immigrants? Look no further than California | Opinion

Actions speak louder than words. That adage is worth remembering as Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, try to minimize their records on granting public health coverage to those who are in the country illegally.

Walz signed legislation in Minnesota that allowed such immigrants to access the state’s free healthcare program for low-income residents, among other public benefits. When asked about it, the governor could only muster,”Well, that’s not the vice president’s position.”

Harris, meanwhile, has sidestepped any clear explanation of where she stands. During her 2019 presidential run, she was a vocal proponent of “Medicare for All,” including those in the country illegally.

Now, campaign officials insist that’s no longer her position. But Harris herself has not explicitly disavowed Medicare for All.

“60 Minutes” host Bill Whitaker asked her about it this month. “You were for Medicare for all, now you’re not. People don’t truly know what you believe or what you stand for. And I know you’ve heard that,” Whitaker said.

Harris responded that she believes “in building consensus.”

So what might a Harris presidency entail on health care? Perhaps her home state of California offers some clues.

The Golden State has done more to expand Medicaid eligibility to unauthorized immigrants than any other state. This effort, which began during Harris’s tenure as California attorney general, has made 1.8 million non-citizens eligible for Medi-Cal, the state’s version of the program, at enormous cost.

In January, the final phase of this expansion took effect, obligating state taxpayers to cover health care for 700,000 working-age unauthorized immigrants. California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office projected that this new benefit would cost more than $1.2 billion over its first six months and $3.1 billion annually after that.

Medi-Cal covers more than 14 million Californians — about one-third of the state’s population. Gov. Gavin Newsom and the legislature had to scramble to close a nearly $47 billion budget deficit for this fiscal year back in June.

Enrolling more unauthorized immigrants will only strain the program further.

Medi-Cal is near a breaking point. To control ballooning costs, it pays care providers some of the lowest reimbursement rates in the nation. Hospitals receive just 74% of what it costs them to care for Medi-Cal beneficiaries. A 2023 report found that more than half of California’s hospitals were losing money, and one in five faced the threat of closure.

The country cannot afford to see the policies of Harris home state go national. All the problems now plaguing California’s healthcare system — overcrowding, underfunding and rising costs — would spread nationwide.

With 11 million unauthorized immigrants currently estimated to be in the United States, the strain on already overburdened Medicaid programs would be unsustainable.

Even in the absence of a California-style expansion, state and federal taxpayers have spent $16.2 billion on emergency health care for unauthorized immigrants through Medicaid since the Biden-Harris administration took office.

Medicaid spending is already out of control. It increased 10% in 2022 to more than $800 billion nationwide, according to the latest federal data. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services project that spending in the program will exceed $870 billion next year.

Harris and Walz are trying to campaign as centrists. But their record is well to the left of the median voter, particularly on health care. Taxpayers cannot afford the kind of willy-nilly expansion of Medicaid that Harris has in mind for the rest of the country.