Amnesty Means Massive Medicaid Costs
by James R. Edwards, Jr.

08/16/2010

If Congress pushes through amnesty, hold onto your wallets. Taxpayers will get robbed and illegal aliens rewarded.

The 11 million illegal aliens who get legalized will then qualify for many taxpayer-funded government programs, including health premium subsidies, the Earned Income Tax Credit and Medicaid. This redistribution of wealth will add billions to the government’s red ink—not to mention deprive productive Americans of their own money.

To get a handle on the size of amnesty’s fiscal consequences, consider the impact on a single program: Medicaid.

Medicaid is an entitlement program, meaning if someone meets the eligibility criteria, then benefits must be provided. This is a welfare program, meaning eligibility is based on low income.

It is guaranteed benefit, meaning there’s no per-beneficiary cap to cause self-restraint. It’s also federal-state, meaning taxpayers get hit twice—paying both state and federal taxes—and states can’t easily buck federal Medicaid mandates. Medicaid has become one of the biggest unfunded liabilities and out-of-control cost drivers saddling state budgets.

Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security are the greatest causes of our runaway federal spending. These entitlement programs gobble up about one-tenth of GDP and are expected to double that by 2055.

This “mandatoryâ€