Dear Editor,
Hello, I am an Evans resident and attended Congressman Carter’s meeting this past weekend in Columbia County. Your guest author got it wrong.
Illegals are on Medicaid, and Buddy Carter is fighting back
Your guest author, writing under the headline “Carter got reasons for shutdown wrong,” completely misses the point and is talking out of both sides of his mouth.
On one hand, he claims that “Medicaid has never been available to non-qualified non-citizens.”
In the next sentence, he contradicts that position, stating “the number of people illegally receiving Medicaid is vanishingly small.” On both points, your writer is sorely mistaken.
A 2024 study by the House Budget Office, found here, revealed that 59% of illegal immigrant households use welfare programs, amounting to $42 billion in annual costs to taxpayers.
While it is true that some illegal immigrants pay taxes, the country is still operating at a loss when it comes to providing them with resources, to the tune of $68,000 per person – and under President Biden, millions of illegal immigrants were released into our country virtually unchecked.
Looking at Medicaid specifically, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that from January 2021– October 2024, the Biden-Harris border crisis cost taxpayers $16.2 billion in Medicaid payments alone. In fact, the State of California spent more than $8.4 billion on taxpayer-funded Medicaid health benefits for illegal aliens last fiscal year, over $5 billion more than initially estimated.
This is the type of fraud that the Working Families Tax Cuts addressed. Buddy Carter was a champion in fighting for that bill and with it the livelihoods of hardworking Georgians.
On the other side of the aisle, we have people like Jon Ossoff, who voted against this bill and have now shut down the government with the goal of rolling back all the progress made to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse from our welfare programs.
Not only is he fighting to spend more taxpayer dollars on health care for illegal immigrants than on American children, seniors, and people with disabilities, but also he is threatening access for the millions of Americans who rely on these services to put food on the table and access healthcare.
Don’t let the left’s rhetoric fool you: this shutdown is about two things. Sticking it to President Trump and ensuring that illegal immigrants maintain access to health care.
Everything else is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Brooke Childers
Evans, Ga.
