Carl DeMeo

I was on the budget committee for only two hearings and I was taken off because of the line of questioning I've been engaging in in a variety of government programs and budget items. This was at my first hearing where we basically said our sources, our investigators are telling us that the cost of illegal and immigrant health care is not what you represented in the budget, that it's far higher.

What's the real number? And she said it's $9.5 billion. I said, okay, well, that's 43% higher than you guesstimated. And how much of that is general fund, which means how much of it is not being reimbursed by the federal government? And the answer, $8.4 billion, all but a small fraction of the cost.

So we're talking about one out of four dollars in the Medi-Cal program in the state general fund in California is being handed out to an illegal immigrant. And that's why it is insolvent currently.