Kaiser Health News
By: Shefali Luthra
The Trump administration wants to redefine a status known as “public charge” — a category used to determine whether someone seeking permanent resident status is “likely to become primarily dependent on the government for subsistence.”
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The new rule would expand the list to include some health insurance, food and housing programs. Specifically, it would penalize green-card applicants for using Medicaid, a federal-state health plan for low-income people.
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The proposal “is definitely a dramatic change from how public charge works today,” said Kelly Whitener, an associate professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families who specializes in pediatric health benefits and managed-care systems. A leaked version of the rule from March suggested officials then were also considering penalizing those who receive subsidies to buy health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. But that idea was not in the proposal published this weekend. The marketplace subsidies are aimed at people at a generally higher income bracket than the beneficiaries targeted in the Trump plan, Whitener noted. “They’re really homing in on low-income immigrants,” she added.
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