California Democrats on Capitol Hill are asking the Obama administration to approve a waiver that would make California the first state in the country to allow undocumented immigrants to buy health care on the Obamacare exchange.
In a letter announced Wednesday, 37 members of California’s congressional delegation asked Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell to accept California’s request for a waiver that would allow the state to offer health care to an estimated 50,000 undocumented immigrants.
“Our entire community benefits when we ensure that everyone in California has access to comprehensive health coverage benefits. Billions of dollars are spent every year on uncompensated care, providing health care services to the uninsured. Enrolling people in comprehensive coverage is not only a more humanitarian approach, it is also more cost effective,” the letter read.
The letter is just the latest in the fight to expand health care coverage to California’s undocumented population. In June, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill passed by the state’s legislature that allowed California’s undocumented population to buy their own health insurance on the state’s exchange, Covered California. However, a special federal waiver – a 1332 waiver– is needed before the state is allowed to enact its law.
While the law doesn’t allow immigrants to access Obamacare subsidies and has no impact on the deficit, it does reveal a political flashpoint in Washington. The question of whether to allow undocumented immigrants to access Obamacare has been a continual sticking point in both health care and immigration discussions on Capitol Hill in recent years and is sure to be seen as a slippery slope by anti-immigrant groups.
California Democrats argued during a presser Wednesday in Washington, however, that denying undocumented immigrants health care was only driving up the long term costs of health care. Without insurance coverage, many immigrants have been forced to depend on emergency services to be treated.
“Enrolling all Californians,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (R-CA) said at the presser, “is not only a more humanitarian approach, it’s also more cost effective to ensure people have access to preventative care and wellness programs.”
That state of California is expected to submit its application for its innovation waiver later this month.
Yeah, that’s going to be a hard sell…
I also think now is a bad time.
The political vs economic issues here mirror, in a way, those in the medicaid-expansion decisions in red states. California is asking the allow people to pay money that will eventually go to health-care providers, thus reducing the amount of healthcare that isn’t paid for (and, incidentally, improving health outcomes for those people and everyone else). Republicans are going to pitch a fit because they don’t like the people who are offering to pay.
Not nice to scare the GOP. Bring it on. Make it an issue with the millions whose lives have improved with Obamacare.
This makes so much sense.
IF they are undocumented then they can’t get work benefits even when they are working and mostly undocumented immigrants are working, more than one job quite often. This really benefits the rest of society even more - it benefits their employers, it benefits everyone around them because they are not going to be as likely to come to work sick and pass it around, and it saves everyone money. I would think that over time it could be shown to save a whole lot of money.
This is why the government of the state Texas is so fucking stupid. Construction is booming all over Texas and every house I see going up is being built by Hispanic immigrants, working for American contractors. It would benefit those contractors to be able to have a healthy, dependable work force, so health care just makes incredibly good sense. So of course Texas will never do it.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (R-CA)… she’s a Democrat. I am not entirely sure how this site messes up party affiliation so often.
As for opening up Obamacare to the undocumented… it is the right idea financially and morally. You really would have to be a horrible human being willing to spend extra money to let people suffer to not support it.