The Senior Senator from Wyoming is challenging the Biden administration about who is paying the health care bills of people who are in this country illegally.
Senator John Barrasso, (R-WY) questioned U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra this week on how hospitals (mostly in sanctuary cities like New York City, Chicago, Denver, Boston, and Los Angeles,) across the country are being overwhelmed by illegal immigrants due to President Biden’s crisis on the southern border.
Senator Barrasso pressed the HHS Secretary on why American taxpayers should be forced to pay to the health care bills, subsequently bailing out hospitals that are in financial distress, because of the overwhelming number of illegal immigrants who come through their doors looking for health care services. Barrasso also spoke to Secretary Becerra about how HHS regulations and staff shortages are negatively impacting rural nursing homes in western states like Wyoming.
Secretary Becerra testified at the Senate Committee on Finance hearing on President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2025 Health and Human Services Budget earlier this week.
Senator Barrasso, a licensed medical doctor himself, told the HHS Secretary, “We’ve seen reported in the news and on television, hospitals in sanctuary cities right now…tell us that they’re at risk of collapsing financially due to the overwhelming number of illegal migrants flooding their emergency rooms and their clinics, who are essentially getting free care, having the American people pay for their care.”
“What I could tell you is that we have extended the resources and authorities that we have at HHS to try to be there to help any healthcare facility when there is a way that we can go in to be supportive. I don’t know of a particular case that you might want to mention, but I know that we are prepared to be supportive of any facility where the authorities that you have given us allow us to go in and support,” Becerra responded.
The senator went on to describe how the numbers of people in this country illegally are overwhelming local and regional hospitals, leaving the institutions with millions of dollars in debt.
“A clinic in Chicago reported seeing nearly 16,000 migrants last year — illegal immigrants. The cost of their care totals over $30 million. This is what the hospital is reporting, paid for by American taxpayers. Denver Health was in the headlines in 2023 reporting over 20,000 hospital visits from migrants. The hospital is now — not surprisingly — in financial distress.”
The Senator from the Cowboy State continued his line of questioning the HHS Secretary by saying that financially distressed hospitals “are now asking the federal government to bail them out and it’s a completely Democrat-caused failure to enforce the law at the southern border.”
According to Senator Barrasso, hospitals are now asking the federal government to bail them out using taxpayers money to foot the bill for “9 million [people who are here illegally] now from all across the world.”
