The Democrat-led state of Illinois spent more to give free health care to illegal migrants than the total it spent on its citizens in programs for foster kids, the elderly, its roadways, and the arts — combined.
The 2025 budget, passed in June of 2024, totaled $53.1 billion in spending, inducing more than one billion dollars in new taxes.
But despite the huge rise in taxes, Gov. JB Pritzker also signed onto a total of $629 million toward taxpayer-funded health care for illegal migrants called the Health Benefits for Immigrant Adults (HBIA).
The mounting number of programs for illegal aliens comes at a cost of billions of tax dollars, according to the Illinois Policy Institute.
But expenditures for citizens are decidedly smaller, according to the Washington Examiner.
“That single expenditure was more than the $400 million the Illinois Department of Transportation was given for its Road Fund that pays for transportation-related projects in towns, cities, and counties; $55.3 million to cook and deliver meals to the elderly; $22.1 million to increase foster homes and specialized care of children; and $24.6 million to fund the Illinois Arts Council — combined,” the Examiner reported.
Indeed, between 2020 and 2025, Illinois kept expanding its health care for illegal aliens despite the already massive cost overruns.
The program started out only covering illegal aliens aged 65 and older in 2020. By 2022, the Democrats pulled the age back to 52. And then, not long after that, it was stretched back to cover illegal aliens at age 42 and up toward the original limit.
The costs of these generous benefits for illegal immigrants became so costly, though, that by the 2026 budget, Pritzker was announcing rollbacks on the massive giveaways.
In the end, after enjoying their plans for only three years, thousands of illegal migrants lost their state-funded health care to budget cuts in Illinois as Gov. Pritzker strained to rein in the billions of dollars of budget deficits plaguing Illinois.
The Democrat governor, who has dreams of running for the Democratic Party nomination for president in 2028, is still claiming that “Illinois is doing all we can to preserve healthcare coverage,” but now seems to realize that there has to be a breaking point somewhere in a state that has a $3.2 billion deficit. And last June, he already pressed the pause button on the second leg of that coverage. Now, he wants to formally end the program.
The 2026 budget, signed last June, subsequently cut back — but did not eliminate — the free health care for illegal aliens programs.
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