One of the more clever things the Trump Administration did when it took the reins from whoever was in charge (still subject to debate) was to retool a mobile app launched by the Biden Administration. CBP One was deployed to allow “migrants” seeking asylum to set up appointments for screening. Translation: How do I get the free stuff you used to entice me here to displace regular Americans? Lots of non-residents signed up.
Team Trump turned it into a self-deportation app called CBP Home, and oh, by the way, we have all your info because you gave it to the US Government voluntarily. In other words, go home, and we won’t have to arrest you or anyone near you before that happens.
And it works. According to the White House, there have been a million self-deportations (as of this week).
Not bad, but the illegals who are here illegally and committing other crimes aren’t doing that, and neither are many others who broke the law to enter the country. So, the Trump Administration continues to look for ways to find these lawbreakers, and what better way than to stop two illegal acts at once?
CBP now has access to the Medicaid rolls.
Yahoo! News is worried about privacy and Americans getting swept up in the dragnet. I’m thinking, wow, what a great way to find people illegally using Medicaid and who are here illegally (using Medicaid).
The database will reveal to ICE officials the names, addresses, birth dates, ethnic and racial information, as well as Social Security numbers for all people enrolled in Medicaid. The state and federally funded program provides health care coverage program for the poorest of people, including millions of children.
Not just. Many access benefits illegally by using stolen Social Security numbers. A sweep by agencies or agents cleared to access these files increases the odds of several excellent outcomes. If you are on Medicaid illegally, you might get caught, citizen or no. If you are here illegally and on Medicaid, you might get caught and deported. [Related: Colquhoun: Medicare Fraud Is Real and I Have The “Receipts”]
The crazy fringe lefties call it getting kidnapped in the street, which didn’t apply to anyone near the US Capitol on Jan 6th that got stopped up by the FBI for walking or chatting to Capitol Police (see also, tour guides and Information booth personnel minus the Booth. Nancy Pelosi’s Office. Right over there. Have a nice day.
FBI swoops in a few weeks later and puts you in indefinite detention, no bail, and you are a legal citizen with Constitutional rights. The Illegals being deported get to go home, and the criminals go home and go to jail where they belong.
Hmmmm.
And I wonder if this data sharing with CBP was on the table when the US Senate removed the provision to kick illegals off Medicaid in the Big Beautiful Bill. This accomplishes the same thing in a different way, and no one had to vote for it.
You have to consider that, or if the Trump Administration, seeing that it wasn’t going to get that in the OBBB, took the opportunity to use this idea, which had (perhaps) been on the table all along but back-burnered until now, to achieve the same goal.
Medicaid is for Americans, and a narrow demographic at that. And offering it to people during COVID who lost their jobs was never a necessary short-term kindness. It has long been the mission of the left to institute cradle-to-grave health insurance welfare by any means. But it is an unnecessary expense and distracts from the real problem. The Hospital/Health Insurance/Big Pharma triad of oligarchies has secured its monopoly through politicians, licensing boards, and other regulatory barriers, making competition difficult, if not impossible.
Government intrusion only makes access worse.
We need to break up these cartels and introduce the broadest possible access to insurers and care providers, while eliminating as many middlemen as possible between you, insurance, care, and medication.
Medicaid should be limited to as few truly needy and eligible recipients as possible, and an open market in healthcare should be established to ensure those limited services go further.
Getting Illegals off it and out of the country frees up resources and revenue. There’s nothing wrong with a safety net as long as that’s all it is, and we get people out of it as soon as we and they are able.