Starting Jan. 1, all illegal immigrants, regardless of age or criminal status, qualify for Medi–Cal, California’s Medicaid program.
The program, an expansion of taxpayer-funded health care that started with Obamacare, makes an estimated 764,000 illegal residents between ages 26 and 49 eligible for full coverage. Earlier expansions included children, young adults and older illegals.
Medi-Cal already covered 14.6 million Californians – more than a third of the state’s population, before the 2024 expansion to those in the country illegally.
Meanwhile, since Obamacare created mandatory insurance laws with the promise of driving down costs, the average annual premium for covered workers in California averaged $8,083 for single coverage and $22,818 for family coverage in 2023, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
but Californians will pay 11% more for health insurance in 2024, due to inflation and state policies driven in part by the rising number of Medi-Cal enrollees.
The free health care may help California reverse its population trend. As working people flee California for Texas and other states, the illegal immigrants may flock to the state for the health services it offers them, boosting actual population numbers but putting pressure on services.
California’s population was 39.5 million in 2020, but declined to below 39 million in 2023.
