Like a Bad Penny, Calif. State Sen. Ricardo Lara’s ‘Health for All’ Resurfaces
Published on December 8th, 2014
“Why not go for it? After all, Governor Jerry Brown rubber stamps every Hispanic entitlement bill that reaches his desk. And they all get there.”
“Why not” has to be the prevailing sentiment in the California Latino Legislative Caucus regarding Sen. Ricardo Lara’s (D-Long Beach) reintroduction of his “Health for All” bill that would provide medical insurance to aliens who will not be covered, at least at this time, under the Affordable Care Act.
In 2013, Brown signed legislation that will, among other privileges, issue driver’s licenses to aliens, allow illegal immigrants to become lawyers and, under the Trust Act, protect nonviolent illegal immigrants from the already scant deportation possibility.
Earlier this year, Lara withdrew his original bill because its financing specifics were vague. The only certainty was that “Health for All” would be taxpayer funded, another assault on working Californians’ pocketbooks. Lara’s new bill proposes to extend Medi-Cal coverage to low-income aliens and provide subsidies to higher-earning ones to help buy private coverage through a Covered California-like insurance marketplace that the state would set up specifically for them.
Once again, Lara did not provide details on how his bill will be paid for, most likely for the obvious reason that asking Californians to shell out still more millions to further accommodate illegal immigrants and indirectly encourage thousands more to come would have been at odds with the feel-good tone of his press conference. California’s illegal immigrant population is estimated at 2.6 million.
Millions of California citizens are either uninsured or, at great expense, pay for their own coverage. Health for All, the bad penny of illegal immigrant entitlement legislation, isn’t really for “all,” but rather exclusively for aliens.
Read the Associated Press story here that quotes Californians for Population Stabilization about Lara’s flawed view of who should qualify for subsidized health care
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