{"id":180397,"date":"2025-09-30T16:03:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T16:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/180397\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T16:03:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T16:03:09","slug":"fact-check-trump-falsely-claims-democrats-want-to-give-free-health-care-to-illegal-aliens-in-government-shutdown-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/180397\/","title":{"rendered":"Fact check: Trump falsely claims Democrats want to give free health care to \u2018illegal aliens\u2019 in government shutdown battle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Amid government spending negotiations<\/a>, President Donald Trump and other GOP leaders are accusing Democrats of demanding free health care for \u201cillegal aliens\u201d in return for their support of a federal funding bill.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe Democrats want Illegal Aliens, many of them VIOLENT CRIMINALS, to receive FREE Healthcare,\u201d Trump wrote in a Truth Social post<\/a> last week.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cDemocrats are about to shut down the government because they demand we fund healthcare for illegal aliens,\u201d Vice President JD Vance posted on X<\/a> last week.\n <\/p>\n

\n But Trump and Vance\u2019s assertions are not true. The Democrats are drawing a line in the sand over health care, but it doesn\u2019t involve undocumented immigrants.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Democrats are pushing to continue more generous federal subsidies to help Americans afford Obamacare policies and to reverse deep cuts to Medicaid contained in Trump\u2019s sweeping domestic policy agenda package. But neither of those changes would provide health coverage to undocumented immigrants, since they aren\u2019t eligible for either program.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Democrats\u2019 top priority is extending the enhanced federal subsidies<\/a> for Affordable Care Act coverage. The beefed-up assistance, which was enacted as part of the Biden administration\u2019s Covid-19 rescue package in 2021, is set to expire at the end of this year. If it lapses, premiums for Obamacare policies in 2026 are expected to skyrocket by more than 75%, on average, according to KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group.\n <\/p>\n

\n The enhanced subsidies have enabled many lower-income Americans to obtain coverage with no or very low monthly premiums and broadened eligibility for assistance to many middle-class consumers. The assistance helped attract a record 24 million people to sign up for coverage this year, roughly 92% of whom are subsidized.\n <\/p>\n

\n Without the more generous aid, consumers are expected to flee the exchanges. About 4 million more people would be uninsured in 2034, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis. What\u2019s more, insurers would raise Obamacare premiums even higher since many of those remaining on the exchanges would be sicker and more costly.\n <\/p>\n

\n It\u2019s important to note that undocumented immigrants have never been eligible for Obamacare subsidies, and the Republicans\u2019 One Big Beautiful Bill Act narrowed the eligibility of certain legal immigrants<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n In addition to renewing the enhanced subsidies, the Democrats want to reverse the historic cuts to health care \u2013 particularly Medicaid \u2013 contained in the \u201cbig, beautiful bill.\u201d The law institutes the first-ever work requirement in Medicaid<\/a> and restricts legal immigrants\u2019 access to the program, among other measures. These provisions are expected to lead to roughly 10 million more people<\/a> being uninsured in 2034.\n <\/p>\n

\n Asked for comment, a White House spokesperson pointed to the Democrats\u2019 push to overturn the Republicans\u2019 health care cuts, though that would broaden health care access for immigrants with legal status, not undocumented immigrants.\n <\/p>\n

\n What\u2019s more, undocumented immigrants are not eligible for federally funded health benefits, including Medicare, Medicaid and the Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP.\n <\/p>\n

\n Medicaid may help cover emergency care at hospitals for undocumented immigrants who would otherwise qualify for the program, but this is not considered health insurance coverage. Less than 1% of total Medicaid spending went toward emergency Medicaid for undocumented immigrants in fiscal year 2023, according to KFF.\n <\/p>\n

\n A number of states use their own funds to provide coverage to children and at least some low-income adults. An earlier version of Trump\u2019s agenda bill contained a provision that would have penalized these states, but it did not make it into the final legislation.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amid government spending negotiations, President Donald Trump and other GOP leaders are accusing Democrats of demanding free health…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-180397","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}