Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is defending his decision to make healthcare benefits available to more undocumented immigrants, News Channel 20 reported.
“We save money when we invest in health care for undocumented immigrants,” Pritzker said. “What happens if they don’t get health care, basic health care, they end up in an emergency room and we all end up paying for that at a much higher cost than if we have preventative care and regular care for people.”
With more and more lawmakers in Springfield opposing his decision to make benefits available to the growing number of migrants arriving in the state, Pritzker argues, “we save money when we invest in health care for undocumented immigrants,” News Channel 20 reported.
With Pritzker having already carved out $220 million for the Health Benefits for Immigrant Seniors Program in the new state budget, a recent report estimated that taxpayers will be on the hook for nearly $1 billion next year in healthcare costs for undocumented immigrants, the station said.
Led by State Sen. Sally Turner (R-Beason), Republicans insist the money allocated in the budget for the immigrant healthcare program could have funded other programs such as investing in kids and infrastructure, the story said.
“I don’t think that that’s something that we need to do. I think that our religious communities and communities that offer services, such as out of the goodness of their heart, those types of things, that’s who needs to be stepping up to the plate,” Beason, said, according to News Channel 20.
Those funds could have been invested in children and infrastructure, the senator said.
“We have a problem and it needs to be stopped on the federal level. So that whole mess that’s going on at the federal level needs to be fixed and he’s been fixed now. So that we don’t have these problems,” Turner said, News Channel 20 reported.
