California Healthline

By Pauline Bartolone

State legislators and advocates are trying to get federal approval for a proposal to allow immigrants living in the U.S. illegally onto the California insurance exchange.

State Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, is carrying a bill to allow people living in the country illegally to buy health insurance through the state exchange.

The proposal needs federal approval to modify the marketplace set up under the Affordable Care Act, which specifically prohibits such immigrants from joining the exchanges.

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Even if the proposal is approved by California lawmakers, however, it faces significant obstacles after that.

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Administrative hurdles aside, the proposed change in California would have to withstand the storm of the nation’s immigration debate.

Allowing adults on the insurance exchange “is another step in California’s relentless effort to … eliminate any kind of distinction between people who are in the country illegally and people who are here legally,” said Ira Mehlman, media director for the Washington D.C.-based Federation for American Immigration Reform.

Mehlman said the Covered California proposal could lead to taxpayer-funded health care for people who have violated the law.

“First you say they should be eligible, then you come back and say no one can afford it, so now we have to start subsidizing it,” he said.
Advocates of the change see it entirely differently. California would be opening up a marketplace to potential buyers, not giving a “handout,” said Sonya Schwartz, a research fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families.

“These immigrants “should be able to have a basic quality of life,” Schwartz said, adding that their good health is important to everyone.

“These are families who are in our same supermarket — we want to make sure they’re getting inoculations,” she said.

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