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medicare
GOP Pushes ‘Big... Brazen’ Lie About Immigrants to Justify Ripping Healthcare Away From Millions
Vanessa Cárdenas of America's Voice said Republicans are "scapegoating immigrants to distract from the fact that their policies are taking away Americans’ healthcare and damaging our economy."
Oct 01, 2025
The US government officially shut down at midnight on Wednesday after weeks of failed negotiations, following Democrats' refusal to back a Republican spending plan that did not reverse the GOP's massive cuts to healthcare spending.
In order to support the GOP's continuing resolution, which needs 60 votes to advance in the Senate, Democratic leaders have long insisted that Republicans extend a Biden-era tax credit that had significantly lowered insurance premiums for around 22 million people who purchased health insurance on the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) online insurance marketplace.
KFF found last month that the tax credits have reduced insurance premiums by 44% on average—over $700 per enrollee—and have contributed to the number of people purchasing insurance on the exchanges more than doubling to over 24 million in 2025.
The GOP allowed the credit to expire at the end of the year during negotiations for President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July. If they are not extended, the average recipient can expect their health insurance premiums to more than double in 2026, which KFF estimates will result in over 4 million people becoming unable to afford their health insurance plans.
Democrats have also demanded that Republicans roll back some of the GOP bill's $793 billion worth of cuts to Medicaid, which the Congressional Budget Office has estimated will result in about 7.8 million more people becoming uninsured and has begun to result in the closures of rural hospitals around the country.
Instead of negotiating to stave off the coming healthcare apocalypse, GOP leaders came up with a different solution: to make up an overt lie. As the shutdown drew nearer, Republicans abruptly shifted to the talking point that Democrats were holding the government hostage unless Republicans agreed to give free healthcare to "illegal aliens."
“Democrats are going to shut down the federal government and inflict significant pain on American citizens because President Trump won't force taxpayers to fund free benefits to illegal aliens,” said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Vice President JD Vance said Democrats "want to give massive amounts of money, hundreds of millions of dollars, to illegal aliens for their healthcare while Americans are struggling to pay their healthcare bills.”
And shortly after Democratic leaders expressed the belief that they'd gotten through to the president during negotiations, Trump dashed any hopes of a resolution by posting a bizarre artificially generated video of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) talking about his plans to "give all these illegal aliens free healthcare... so they can vote for us" while standing next to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who was edited to appear with a sombrero and a mustache while mariachi music played in the background.
It is a bit that they have continued using to lampoon Democrats who have demanded that Trump treat the negotiations seriously.
"The lie is so big and so brazen that it’s almost not worth addressing, because doing so gives the claim far more credibility than it deserves," Jonathan Cohn explained for The Bulwark, a right-leaning publication. "But it’s become ubiquitous in Republican talking points, from the president on down. There’s also a chance some people will believe it, because it feeds into some common misconceptions about healthcare and immigration policy, as well as preconceptions of how the parties operate."
Undocumented immigrants in the United States are barred from applying for federally funded healthcare, including Medicaid and subsidized plans from the ACA. They also cannot receive, as Trump claimed, "Medicare—the Cadillac Medicare."
Democrats have called for lawful immigrants, including legal asylum recipients, green-card holders, and other legal permanent residents, to have their healthcare restored after the Big Beautiful Bill stripped them of eligibility for these programs.
"Republicans might not want these people to be eligible for those subsidies," Cohn said. "But these people are not 'illegal aliens.' They have permission to be in the United States."
Another persistent claim has been that millions of undocumented immigrants are lying about their status to obtain benefits they shouldn't, which Republicans also frequently invoked during the debate over cuts to Medicaid in June, including the audacious lie from Senate Republicans that the bill “protects Medicaid for eligible Americans by removing 1.4 million illegals.”
"Even if it were true that millions of Americans were getting Affordable Care Act insurance through deception or error, there’s no reason to think that large numbers of undocumented immigrants would be among them," Cohn explained.
This is because enrollment systems cross-check Social Security numbers with information from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Meanwhile, Healthcare.gov requires noncitizens to provide other forms of documentation, like green-cards or entry permits, to demonstrate their lawful status.
The only federal healthcare subsidy that even theoretically benefits undocumented immigrants is "Emergency Medicaid," which reimburses hospitals that provide mostly emergency care to immigrants ineligible for federal healthcare subsidies. The GOP bill cut $28 billion from this program, and Democrats have called for it to be restored, along with other Medicaid cuts.
However, that $28 billion is only about 3% of the total healthcare cuts Democrats are calling to restore and less than 1% of total Medicaid spending. Moreover, only a portion of the beneficiaries are undocumented immigrants—they also include many legal residents who are not yet eligible for government benefits.
"A lot of the money, Cohn said, "is spent on truly emergency services like resuscitating somebody from a heart attack or delivering a baby that hospitals and clinics are obligated to provide, thanks to a 1980s law, signed by Ronald Reagan, that prohibits denying care to people who need stabilizing or lifesaving treatment."
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act has been one of the least popular pieces of legislation in recent memory. According to the most recent data from Pew Research in August, 46% disapprove of the tax and spending law, while 32% approve. Just 11% said they strongly approve, while 33% said they strongly disapprove.
The bill's cuts to Medicaid are especially unpopular, but Republicans have managed to push off many of the worst effects until after the 2026 midterms. The same cannot be said about the ACA subsidy cuts, which will be felt immediately in the new year.
Republicans are well aware that being blamed for those cuts could be destructive to their electoral chances. One survey conducted in July by two of Trump’s most trusted pollsters found that for Republicans in the most competitive congressional districts, “a 3-point deficit becomes a 15-point deficit” against the generic Democrat if they allow the healthcare premium tax credit to expire.
As Vanessa Cárdenas, the executive director of immigrant advocacy group America's Voice, said Tuesday as the shutdown approached, "The Trump administration and their allies in Congress are going back to their repulsive yet tried-and-true tactic of scapegoating immigrants to distract from the fact that their policies are taking away Americans’ healthcare and damaging our economy."
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Democrats Take Aim at 'Greedy' For-Profit Giants Gobbling Up Local Health Clinics Nationwide
“Across the country, insurance companies are buying up doctors’ offices, driving up costs, and putting insurance company profits over patients."
Sep 18, 2025
A group of Democratic lawmakers on Thursday unveiled new legislation aimed at cracking down on for-profit insurance companies that are buying up local health clinics across the US.
The Patients Over Profits Act—which is being introduced by Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), alongside Reps. Val Hoyle (D-Ore.), Pat Ryan (D-NY), and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)—seeks to end mass consolidation in the healthcare industry by barring large insurance companies and subsidiaries such as UnitedHealth Group and Optum from purchasing independently run health clinics.
Specifically, the proposed legislation would bar insurance companies and their subsidiaries from owning Medicare Part B or Part C providers; would mandate insurance companies that already own these providers to divest of them under penalty of civil action by the Federal Trade Commission and other law enforcement entities; and would bar the Health and Human Services department from contracting with Medicare Advantage organizations that also own Medicare Part B or Part C providers.
The legislators behind the bill said that it is necessary to stop large conglomerates from further price-gouging patients while limiting their access to healthcare.
“Across the country, insurance companies are buying up doctors’ offices, driving up costs, and putting insurance company profits over patients," said Merkley. "Our bill cracks down on greedy insurance companies’ attempts to control doctors and squeeze patients for every cent."
While it's a nationwide issue, the impacts are felt locally, Merkeley added, citing one Oregon clinic "reportedly losing dozens of physicians and subsequently kicking out thousands of patients after it was purchased by Optum."
The new legislation, he said, "reins in these out-of-control consolidations, which are great for corporate greed and a bad deal for patients.”
Ryan told a similar story about how healthcare industry consolidation had harmed his district in New York.
"UnitedHealth has gobbled up our local healthcare practices, creating a monopoly that directly hurts everyone in our community," he said. "In their greedy pursuit of profits, they now own the insurance company, they own your doctor, they own the pharmacy and they own the software that processes all of your information—and they use it all to keep prices high and drive quality down. Enough—it’s time to break up UnitedHealth and put you back in control of your own healthcare."
The proposed legislation has also won the support of advocacy organizations American Economic Liberties Project, Center for Health and Democracy, Health Care for America Now, Just Care, Labor Campaign for Single Payer, MoveOn, Physicians for a National Health Program, Public Citizen, Social Security Works, and Puget Sound Advocates for Retirement Action.
Rachel Madley, the director of policy and advocacy at the Center for Health and Democracy, described the bill as "vital legislation that will protect patients" while reining in large insurers.
"Big Insurance is rapidly consolidating and creating monopolistic companies that control virtually every part of our health care system," she added. "It is a system now rigged to ensure their profits, not our care."
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I'm a Far-Left Radical. Here's What That Means.
Sound scary?
Sep 18, 2025
If you’re even remotely associated with the Democratic Party, whether running for office, helping out, or just breathing while Democratic, the GOP and their rightwing media attack dogs will label you a “far left radical.”
So, in the interest of clarity, let me make it official: I’m a far-left radical.
Here’s why. I believe:
— Every worker should have the right to democracy in their workplace (a union), and that nobody who works full time should have to live in poverty because the minimum wage hasn’t gone up in a stupid amount of time. I’m a far-left radical.
— Retired people shouldn’t have to pay income taxes on their Social Security (the way it was before Reagan), that morbidly rich people should pay into the system like the rest of us, that Social Security should pay enough to live modestly on, and that Medicare should cover all our expenses with minimum hassle. I’m a far-left radical.
— Every American citizen should be able to vote without a hassle, and taking away your vote should require a judge’s action to prove why, just like if a state wants to take away your gun. I’m a far-left radical.
— Speaking of guns, it’s obscene that the leading cause of death for our children is bullets, and we shouldn’t have to regularly terrorize our children with active shooter drills. We need rational gun control laws, like almost every other country in the world has. I’m a far-left radical.
— It’s crazy that three men own more wealth than the bottom half of America and pay less of their income in taxes than your average teenager. If we want the general prosperity of the 1950s, we should have the same tax rate that Republican President Dwight Eisenhower so loved: 90% on the morbidly rich after they’ve made their first few million dollars a year. I’m a far-left radical.
— Our children and grandchildren deserve a world where they needn’t fear being killed by climate-change-driven wild weather, drought, or wildfires, and the air and water are clean. And it’s nuts that we’re subsidizing the fossil fuel industry that’s preventing this. I’m a far-left radical.
— Every other country in the world helps their young people go to college; in most it’s as cheap as it was here in the 1960s when you could put yourself through school with a weekend job. Some countries even pay people to go to college, like the $100/month stipend my dad had with the GI Bill after WWII that built our scientific and business prowess. And it’s wrong to cripple entire generations with trillions in student debt. I’m a far-left radical.
— Across the 34 richest (OECD) countries in the world, over a half-million families are wiped out every year because somebody got sick. All of those families are here in America. Healthcare should be a right — like in every other developed country in the world — instead of a privilege that depends on how much money you have. I’m a far-left radical.
— Starting a small family business, once the backbone of every American town and city, should once again be possible; we need to break up the massive monopolies that have come to dominate every single industry. See: Republican Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Like them, I’m a far-left radical.
— Every person in America should be free to practice their own religion — or no religion — and raise their kids that way without government interference, government promotion, or their tax dollars subsidizing local megachurches’ religious schools. Like the Constitution says. I’m a far-left radical.
— People should be judged, hired, and promoted based on the quality of their minds, their work, and their integrity, not the color of their skin, their ethnicity, or their religion. I’m a far-left radical.
— Women should have the same rights and privileges as men, from the workplace to the boardroom to the voting booth. I’m a far-left radical.
— Our queer brothers and sisters should have the same rights and privileges as everybody else, and be free to live their lives without discrimination or harassment. I’m a far-left radical.
— America is a nation of immigrants, and we have been strengthened in every generation by the diversity of talent and humanity that have come here to participate in the American dream. We need comprehensive immigration reform to clean up our system. I’m a far-left radical.
These are all positions Republicans hate, and any one of them will get you labeled as a far-left radical instantly.
So, the next time some rightwing idiot attacks you for voting for Kamala Harris or having a D on your voter registration or an anti-Trump bumper sticker, simply repeat after me:
“I’m a far left radical — and proud of it!”
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