Those are precisely the jobs held by many of the roughly 200,000 people whose temporary protected status (TPS) was terminated at the end of July, Swonk noted, adding that 400,000 more Venezuelan workers concentrated in nursing homes, hospitality, and construction are also set to lose their work authorization in October.

The timing could hardly be worse: The labor shock is colliding with state-level cuts to Medicaid, the largest payer for long-term care.

“Even as some employers lose those workers, we’re not going to be able to afford to replace them at the wages necessary,” Swonk warned. “That means rationing, or more people doing unpaid care at home.”

But, wait, wouldn’t unpaid home care be even better than immigrant labor? I mean, immigrants will do the work for pennies on the dollar but unpaid home care workers do it for free. If the idea is to get the job done for the lowest possible cost, can’t do better than free. Even relatively low paid immigrants need to get paid tens of thousands of dollars a year, and a large percentage of that comes from Medicare and Medicaid, which means tax payers are paying for it. And we all know how much tax payers hate having to pay for other people’s healthcare. Imagine how much we can lower taxes if healthcare is being done for free at home.