This is a "compromise," you see, because immigrant activists and their representatives in the US state of California were also pressing to have elderly illegal immigrants insured for the rest of their lives as well.
John Sexton observes:
If anything, I suspect the estimates of the cost of these proposals, including this current one extending Medi-Cal to illegal immigrants, are going to be on the low side. As even Vox is now acknowledging, we already have a crisis on the southern border:
What's happening at the border is the result of a regional crisis in which -- if current rates continue -- close to 1 percent of the entire population of Guatemala and Honduras will attempt to immigrate to the US this year.
So what happens when word gets back to people in Central America that California is offering free health care to anyone under 26 regardless of status? It's a very simple principle: What you subsidize, you get more of. California is about to further subsidize illegal immigration.
I don't think there's any way to do this, but I'm interested in the notion of a reverse-secession: That is, we just boot California out of the union.
If they want to be Central America, El Norte Extension, that's fine, but count the rest of us out.