Thread: Immigration status is a health policy challenge

Immigration status is a health policy challenge


A nurse and patient are shown. | AP Photo

Medicaid may become more accessible for legal immigrants who have been here five years. | AP Photo
By KYLE CHENEY | 5/16/12 12:24 AM EDT

The Obama administration’s drive to cut down on America’s uninsured is about to get multilingual.

Come 2014, when core provisions of the Affordable Care Act kick in, millions of legal immigrants will have new options for gaining health coverage. And like U.S. citizens, most will be subject to the individual mandate, under which they will be required to get coverage to avoid a penalty.

The national health law explicitly excludes illegal immigrants — a politically explosive topic — and bans them from the new state insurance exchanges, even if they use their own money. They will make up a big chunk of the remaining uninsured population. But advocates say states have good reasons to reach out and get uninsured legal residents covered — especially as the federal government picks up most of the tab.

“States with high immigrant populations are definitely looking forward to seeing how the Affordable Care Act is going to be able to provide the state more options for those immigrants,” said Sonal Ambegaokar, a health policy attorney at the National Immigration Law Center. According to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, noncitizens — legal and illegal — are three times as likely as native-born citizens to be uninsured.

In 2014 — assuming the health law survives the Supreme Court and hasn’t been undone by a new administration — legal immigrants will be able to shop for health coverage through the new state insurance exchanges. They can get the same income-linked subsidies as citizens.

Legal immigrants’ five-year federal waiting period for Medicaid, approved in 1996, won’t change. But for legal immigrants who have been here five years, Medicaid may be more accessible because it’s being expanded and the eligibility rules are being broadened. Traditionally, the states and Washington have split the costs of covering this low-income population, but Washington will pay more for the newly eligible.

States have the option of waiving the five-year rule for legal immigrants, but they must use their own funds, and only about 15 have done so, according to Kaiser. More have lifted the rules for children and pregnant women in the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Kaiser found.


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The national health law explicitly excludes illegal immigrants

They are specifically exempt from the requirement to have insurance, and may continue to use our emergency rooms as their primary care clinic, all without cost to them.

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