DFL deficit: DFL’s fight to give illegal immigrants free healthcare is holding up budget deal
Last week, I summarized the state of play in the budget negotiations in St. Paul and suggested that you “watch this space” to stay informed. If you have been watching this space, you will have noticed that it has basically been empty. That is because budget negotiations appear to have made no significant progress since last week.
What is the hold-up? There are probably quite a few, but according to WCCO’s Esme Murphy — who is generally pretty well informed of goings on within the DFL — “One of the biggest obstacles is a DFL divide over free health insurance for adult undocumented immigrants.”
Protestors took over the hall outside the governor’s office, furious that he and the DFL Senate majority leader backed a compromise that would take the health insurance benefit away from undocumented adults but leave it in place for children.
“The governor is saying he will stand strong but will he, if he goes back on his promises on immigrants what else is he going to go back on,” said Erika Zurawski, who protested the policy.
Passed by the “historic” DFL trifecta in 2023, the expansion of MinnesotaCare to cover illegal immigrants has seen 17,396 enrolments, more than twice the original estimate of 7,700. As a result, the scheme’s cost has ballooned from an estimated $196 million over four years to $550 million and climbing. And, while the federal government typically covers up to 90% of the cost of MinnesotaCare enrollees, illegal immigrants are ineligible for federal funding so Minnesota’s taxpayers — among whom are some illegal immigrants, of course — are footing 100% of the bill.
House and Senate DFLers protested the rollback when the budget deal was announced a couple of weeks ago. Now, KAAL TV reports:
In the Capitol, disagreements are not just happening between opposing sides of the aisle. Just this afternoon, it wasn’t Democrats and Republicans arguing, it was a Senate Democrat versus a House Democrat.
“Because committees in the House are evenly split, it takes support from both political parties to advance budget bills,” MPR News’ Dana Ferguson and Peter Cox report:
There have been instances where Senate Democrats and some House members agree, which normally would be enough to move a bill out of a working group or conference committee. But that tied House makes it harder to get enough support to close deals.
That happened yesterday during a working group meeting on taxes. Senate Taxes Committee Chair Ann Rest, DFL-New Hope, put up an offer that was what House members proposed.
“Let it be known to our leaders that the House cannot even accept their own proposal. Now we will take a recess,” Rest said.
A leading House Democrat, Rep. Aisha Gomez, laughed off the remark. Moments earlier, previously told Rest that it’s hard to move portions forward without a full picture.
“We haven’t had the conversation about how we’re going to fund our bill, how we’re going to meet our target,” Gomez said. “If we cannot advance that, we cannot advance our bill.”
If no agreement is reached by Sunday, layoff notices will start going out to state employees. The final deadline for a deal is June 30. If there is no agreement by then, the state government will shut down for the first time since 2011, good news for the AnCaps out there. Keep watching this space, I guess.