MSNBC’s Ana Cabrera cut into Speaker Mike Johnson’s press conference on Thursday to correct his claim that Democrats seek free health insurance for undocumented immigrants. (Watch the video below.)
Parroting the GOP’s wildly misleading assertion about the Democrats’ intent while negotiating an end to the government shutdown, Johnson said:
“They say that we’re making this up — this illegal aliens receiving taxpayer benefits. It’s a talking point, they said. I want to remind you of a couple of key facts. Everybody can remember, I think, back to 2020, in the presidential debate for all the candidates on the Democrat side. You might remember, famously, they were asked the question — raise your hand, they said on the stage — if you believe that illegal aliens should receive health care paid for by American taxpayers.”
The Louisiana Republican continued by saying, “Every single one of them raised their hand to great applause in the audience from the Democrats who were there.” He then added, “Those hands included Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Now, what did they do? Did they follow through on that promise? Yeah, they absolutely did. Joe Biden used executive orders, and he expanded benefits ― health care to illegal aliens ― in his four-year term. That was an outrageous violation of the existing federal law.”
Then Cabrera chimed in with a swift fact check.
“OK, I want to pull out just to make sure we don’t offer misleading information when it comes to what the facts are and what the laws are,” she said. “I can tell you that U.S. law prohibits undocumented immigrants from gaining federally subsidized health care, whether that’s Medicaid, Affordable Care Act, Children’s Health Insurance Program, or otherwise. It’s actually a 1996 law that establishes that, and the Democrats aren’t looking to change that law.”
She went on to say, “And as far as the Affordable Care Act subsidies, there is no access for undocumented immigrants to get Obamacare. That’s just the fact right now.”
Republicans keep falsely asserting that Democrats voted against a measure to keep government services going because they want free health care for “illegal aliens.”
Democratic negotiations call for undoing GOP Medicaid cuts and extending subsidies for Americans who buy Obamacare insurance.
The video Johnson referred to was a 2019 debate and has nothing to do with the stalemate. That clip is also misleading. The moderator, Savannah Guthrie, did not ask if the coverage for undocumented immigrants would be free. The two who answered the question, eventual nominee Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, did not say the health coverage would be free either. According to the Poynter Institute’s PolitiFact, they both mentioned how immigrants would pay into the system through taxes.
