GOP Charge That Harris Backed Taxpayer-Funded Care for All Immigrants Overlooks Details

Attacking Vice President Kamala Harris on immigration, Republicans and allies of former Donald President Trump’s are saying the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate supported using taxpayer dollars to provide free health coverage to immigrants who are in the country without legal permission.

Senate and House candidates, an American political action committee supporting Trump, and the Republican National Committee have made similar assertions in recent days.

We contacted the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment about Trump’s statement, but neither responded.

The claims are misleading. It’s true that Harris supported allowing immigrants residing in the U.S. to obtain public health insurance regardless of legal status. During the first 2019 Democratic presidential primary debate in Miami, Kamala Harris raised her hand when a moderator asked candidates to raise their hands if their administration’s health plan would cover immigrants who are in the country illegally.

But that doesn’t mean Harris specifically said she supported taxpayer funding for the benefits or that the health coverage would be free.

PolitiFact has checked similar claims Republicans and Trump made in 2019 and found them Mostly False. The moderator didn’t ask Harris and the other candidates directly whether their plans would provide the coverage free of charge or with taxpayer money, so the claim is unsubstantiated.

Recently, Republicans have pointed to statements Harris made in 2019 while running for president to portray her as supporting giving public benefits to immigrants living in the country illegally. Specifically, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Harris whether her “Medicare for All” plan would cover such immigrants.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee on July 23 posted on the social platform X a clip of the interview with the message: “FLASHBACK: Kamala Harris tells Jake Tapper she endorses universal healthcare and Medicare-for-all for illegal immigrants.”

But that clip doesn’t show her saying that. Instead, in response to a question about whether Medicare for All should apply to people in the country illegally, she said, “I am opposed to any policy that would deny in our country any human being from access to public safety, public education, or public health, period.” Tapper didn’t ask anything else about this.

Medicare for All is a system, promoted by some Democrats, in which all Americans would get their health insurance from a government program modeled after the one that currently covers people 65 and older and people with disabilities.

Under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which became law in 1986, all patients regardless of citizenship or immigration status are already entitled to treatment in hospital emergency rooms. 

Some anti-immigration groups say they still believe Harris supports taxpayer-paid health benefits for immigrants lacking legal residency.

“Instead of pushing back, she at the very least implicitly endorses Medicare for illegal aliens,” said Joey Chester, a spokesperson for Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that seeks to reduce overall immigration. That she raised her hand during the 2019 debate means her position is to give taxpayer-funded health care benefits to people who are in the country illegally, he added.

Harris’ proposal would have provided comprehensive health insurance to all Americans. But it was not all free. She would have allowed Americans to immediately buy into the program while expanding it over 10 years. The plan she produced was similar to current Medicare, in which people can buy plans that the federal government or private insurers administer.

A 10-year phase-in would automatically enroll newborns and uninsured people. But her proposal didn’t break down how it would pay for coverage of recipients living in the U.S. without authorization.

Harris wrote in a 2019 article on Medium that “good options” to pay for Medicare for All plans include an income-based premium by employers, higher taxes on the wealthiest 1% of Americans, taxing Wall Street trades, and savings from accelerating health care-delivery system reforms and changes in the way providers are paid.

California, where Harris served as attorney general from 2011 to 2017, was the first state this year to expand Medicaid eligibility to all qualified immigrants regardless of legal status, phasing it in over several years. Medicaid is a federal-state health program that provides health coverage to low-income and disabled adults.

The California program for immigrants is funded almost entirely by state dollars, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonprofit research institution. Federal law generally bans states from using federal money to pay for health coverage for immigrants living in the country without legal permission.

However, taxpayers can bear the brunt of uncompensated care, when people without insurance — including immigrants lacking legal residency — seek care at hospitals or from other providers. The costs are passed on to other consumers in the form of higher prices and are considered a drain on state and local government budgets.

“Government payments are the main source for helping to defray providers’ costs for care to the uninsured, and those government payments are ultimately funded by taxpayers,” said Laurel Lucia, health care program director at the University of California-Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education Center, which provides research and policy information.

Immigrants who are in the country illegally also pay billions of dollars in taxes.

“If she does support subsidized coverage for noncitizens, I’d see that as a good thing, not a bad thing,” said Sabrina Corlette, co-director of the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. “Many recent immigrants are taking care of our children, our elderly, working in hospitality, food service, and food production. Isn’t it in our best interests for these folks to have access to good health care?”

Our Ruling

Republicans have sought to portray Harris as extreme on immigration and assert that she supports free, taxpayer-funded health benefits for immigrants who are in the country illegally.

Harris signaled in 2019 that her Medicare for All proposal would cover all immigrants regardless of status. She has also said that she would oppose any policy that would deny anyone in the country access to “public health.” However, health policy and immigration experts say there’s no evidence she would provide the coverage free, paid for by other taxpayers. Immigrants lacking legal residency also pay taxes.

Harris has not expressly said she supports free, taxpayer-supported health coverage for immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.

Trump’s statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate this claim Mostly False.

This article was produced by KFF Health News, a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.