Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor who oversees Medicaid and Medicare for the Trump administration, welcomes the move by a trio of blue states — California, Illinois and Minnesota — to freeze or reduce health care benefits for undocumented migrants.
He told NewsNation’s “CUOMO” on Friday that some states broadened their public medical programs to include migrants because they could leverage federal dollars to pay for it, but Medicaid is supposed to be reserved for the most vulnerable Americans.
“If we extend it to illegal immigrants without keeping tabs of what those costs are — and especially if we have a system that encourages states to do legalized money laundering, to push more money towards able-bodied individuals — the dollar doesn’t stretch that far. You end up bankrupting the whole system,” the former TV host said Friday.
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) proposes suspending new health care enrollment for undocumented adults, although existing patients would continue to receive some coverage.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) would go further, ending his state’s immigrant adult health program, which covers more than 30,000 people, on July 1. Minnesota is making undocumented adults ineligible for health care assistance by the end of the year.
“Taking care of a large population of undocumented folks has become a problem, and states have to manage that,” Oz said.
The top health official’s comments come after the administration moved to end Obamacare’s coverage of immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally as children, according to a final rule announced Friday.
The provision will undo a Biden-era rule that was estimated to allow 147,000 immigrants to enroll in coverage. A federal judge blocked the rule from being enforced in 19 states, and it is still being litigated in court.
