LETTER: Nevada, Medicaid and illegal immigrants
On Tuesday, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto spoke to Nevada legislators with a speech titled: Federal cuts championed by President Donald Trump’s administration and congressional Republicans would gut Nevada. As part of her comments, Sen. Cortez Masto said, “Nevadans are being told that these cuts are going to come from cracking down on waste, fraud and abuse of Medicaid.” She further said, “And it would be great if that were true.”
Unfortunately, the senator failed to mention the cost that is expended each year on Medicaid for illegal immigrants in our state. According to The Associated Press, California has a $6.2 billion Medicaid funding gap partly due to expanding immigrant coverage. I suspect Nevada’s costs are escalating as well, and it would be interesting to see the dollar amount spent for Medicaid in Nevada that is attributable to illegal immigrants.
