As the government shutdown reaches its 24-hour mark on Wednesday, the central fight over spending priorities has escalated into a heated public debate over whether Democratic demands would expand taxpayer-funded healthcare access to non-citizens.
Democratic leaders, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), have vehemently denied Republican claims, characterizing them as “outright lies.”
They have insisted their key demands focus solely on extending Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits set to expire and other health expenditures for American citizens.
“Federal law prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars to provide medical coverage to undocumented individuals. That’s the law. And there is nothing in anything that we have proposed that is trying to change that law,” Jeffries stated in a recent interview with CNBC.
However, Republican leaders, including Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), have countered by pointing to specific provisions within the Democrats’ proposal, arguing they represent a push to expand healthcare access for non-citizens. Johnson told CNN that Democrats are “making the demand to change that” law.
The conflict came to a head on Wednesday when Rep. Jeffries appeared on CNN. Host Jake Tapper confronted the Minority Leader with the text of the Democratic proposal, citing provisions that address healthcare for non-citizens.
Tapper first noted the Republicans’ broad claim that Democrats want to give health insurance to “undocumented immigrants,” which Jeffries immediately interjected was “a lie.” Tapper agreed with the legal distinction but then pointed out two specific provisions: one that would “bring back funding for emergency Medicaid to hospitals, some of which does pay for undocumented immigrants,” and a second provision concerning asylum seekers and individuals with Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
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Tapper pressed Jeffries on the latter, stating, “it’s not about undocumented immigrants, it’s about people with asylum seekers and people with temporary protected status… but about their ability to get Medicaid. So they’re non-citizens, they’re not undocumented, they’re not illegal. Why even include that in a bill knowing that they’re going to seize right upon that and use that to message?”
The question—highlighting a nuanced but significant difference between undocumented individuals and legally present non-citizens—appeared to leave the Minority Leader searching for a response, underscoring the political difficulty Democrats now face in defending their spending priorities as the shutdown continues.
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