Florida’s Medicaid spending on migrants has dropped by 54% this year following Gov. Ron DeSantis’ measures against illegal immigration. Some believe that his policy requiring individuals to disclose their immigration status at hospitals is deterring people from seeking urgent medical care, leading to reduced Medicaid spending.
In the last fiscal year, prior to the new Florida law, $148.4 million in state and federal Medicaid funds were used for emergency care for migrants in the state. However, by May 3 of this fiscal year, only $67 million had been spent on this program, according to Politico.
Governor DeSantis signed Senate Bill 1718, which requires hospitals to ask patients about their citizenship status and report this information to the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. This was part of a broader crackdown on illegal immigration, including mandatory immigration-status verification for employers with 25 or more employees. DeSantis signed this law shortly before launching his 2024 presidential campaign.
Medicaid, funded jointly by state and federal governments, provides health care to those in financial need and is separate from Medicare, which serves the elderly. The spending on emergency Medicaid coverage for immigrants in Florida had been decreasing even before the enactment of SB 1718, but the current decline is significantly more pronounced.
The Florida AHCA’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year includes $557,882 to monitor healthcare costs for illegal immigrants. In a report from March, AHCA estimated that hospitals had incurred around $566 million in health-care expenses for illegal immigrants in the latter half of 2023.
Florida hospitals can request emergency Medicaid funding from the state’s Department of Children and Families for migrant patients, most of whom are pregnant women or need life-saving treatments. However, these authorizations have also decreased from 147,000 in the 2022 fiscal year to 116,000 in 2023, and down to 99,000 as of April 30, according to Politico.
