The Assembly today signed off 51-44 along party lines on a bill to bar the use of public money to pay for health care services for those in the country illegally.
Rep. Angela Stroud, D-Ashland, said the bill is part of a larger GOP playbook to blame immigrants for Republicans’ failures. She said Republicans are trying to get a headline rather than solve problems.
“We don’t need to pass a law to prevent us from using state money to provide health care to undocumented people because we don’t do that in Wisconsin,” Stroud said.
AB 308 would bar the use of public money to pay for health care services for those in the country illegally. Undocumented immigrants are already prohibited from enrolling in BadgerCare, but bill authors have argued the legislation is necessary to prevent the state from expanding coverage.
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Co-author Rep. Alex Dallman, R-Markesan, pointed to states like Illinois and Minnesota who made the change, leading to high costs for taxpayers. Markesan said adding undocumented immigrants to the Medicaid rolls would put the state in dire financial straits.
“If we add them all to our Medicaid rolls, this state will go bankrupt, or we will have to drastically raise taxes, which none of us on this side of the aisle want to do,” Dallman said. “So again, this bill is just making sure that this state, or this administration, which is pushing the limits every chance they possibly can, does not have the ability to outright try to bankrupt some of our benefits and some of our programs, which our Wisconsin state citizens paid into and expect and deserve when they need it the most.”
