Afghan refugees caresses their 9-day infant at the pediatric ward of the treatment facility in 2021 in the common McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, NJ-Chodźcy base belong to the legally present uncomfortable unachers standing in the face of the loss financed by federal health care protection. (Photo Barbara Davidson/Pool/Getty Images)
It is estimated that 1.4 million immigrants who are legally in the country, but there are not citizens to lose fueled government health care as part of huge tax and expenses, President Donald Trump signed the law this summer, according to this summer. estimates from an impartial congress budget office.
One Big Beautiful Bill Act reduces federal expenditure on Medicaid, a joint health insurance program in a federal state for low -income people. He also places up-to-date limitations of qualifying for legally current immigrants, including refugees and Assele, who are enrolled in various health programs subsidized by the government: Medicaid, health insurance program for children (chip), Medicare and Affordable Care Act.
Immigrants who are illegally in the country He has not qualified for a long time In the case of financed by federal health insurance.
But seven states – California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Oregon and Washington – as well as the district of Colombia expanded Protection financed by the state for some non -profitable adults, regardless of their immigration status. Fourteen states plus a district provides non -social children financed by state insurance, regardless of whether they are legally or not.
New restrictions on the One Big Beautiful Bill, in combination with other Trump’s politicians limiting public benefits for immigrants, put these states in financial bonding. Having less federal money for immigrants who are legally here, countries will be arduous to maintain their programs that offer insurance to all immigrants, regardless of their legal status.
“We are taking a huge step back from this public health and preventive health, excluding more people and exhausting federal resources from the states that need it,” said Tanya Broder, a senior adviser specializing in the health policy of immigrant health at the National Law Law Center, a spokesman.
“As a result, it will be that our health – individually, as a family and community – will be exposed to a threat, and the infrastructure of healthcare, which supports us all, will also be threatened,” said Broder.
Already, some states that offered lend a hand in health protection to all immigrants – regardless of status – are retreating.
To lend a hand closing a 12 billion dollars deficit, California Democratic Gavin Gavin Newsom In June it was signed The state budget, which prohibits immigrants, who are illegal here from subscribing to the Medicaid State Program, known as Medi-Cal. Current registrants aged 19 to 59 will have to pay a up-to-date premium monthly USD from 2027. In July 2026, the state will eliminate dental care for non -citizens.
In July, Illinois ended the health insurance program financed by the state for all immigrants aged 42 to 64. The state continues to conduct a plan financed by the state for residents aged 65 and older, regardless of immigration status, but registration has been stopped. Minnesota also plans to exclude adult immigrants who are illegally from a program that provided coverage regardless of immigration status.
New York is in a particularly arduous place because its state constitution prohibits discrimination against legally current immigrants in the field of public benefits.
We take a huge step back from this public health and preventive health, excluding more people and exhausting federal resources from the states that need it.
– Tanya Broder, National Immigration Law Center
“The states had a kind of freedom of financing resources for migrating communities, if they want,” said Medha Makhlouf, law and director founder of the Medical Partnership Clinic at Penn State Dickinson, who studies the access of immigrants for health care. “But now it [federal] The law makes it difficult for them. “
It did less attractive to stay
Jessica Vaughan, director of political studies at the Immigration Studies Center, a non-profit group that supports a more severe immigration policy, said that these efforts are part of both the greater anti-immigration attitude of Trump, as well as “Congress’s interest in getting rid of any motivation or benefits for people who are in the country.”
“It’s a way to make him less attractive to people to stay illegally here, right?” Said Vaughan. “They try to give people reasons to leave, not the reasons for staying.”
As non -nationalists who are legally, they legally lose access to benefits financed by federally, state demand for state insurance “will probably increase”, said Stateline Drishti Pillai, Director of Immigrants’ Health Policy at KFF, the research group for health policy research.
“However, at the same time you are facing the growing budget pressure, especially in the case of Medicaid cuts,” said Pillai. “So this is almost a double Whammy, in which there will probably be increased demand for the state -financed range programs, but also countries will have less resources to cover people.”
Makhlouf said that the changes in Trump’s administration policy reflect a wider strategy of depriving public benefits of marginalized and indigent communities.
“Everyone who cares for access to healthcare must pay attention to what is happening to immigrants,” she said. “When he becomes normalized to sacrifice humanity for some people or their sensitivity or minimize their contribution to society and say:” You don’t deserve access to healthcare “, you can include in every group.”
According to the National Act on Trump’s policy, California expects to lose at least $ 28.4 billion in the federal financing of Medicaid, in accordance with the News office.
On the floor of the California Senate, on June 27, the senator of democratic state María Elena Duzo expressed her sadness to the state’s decision to refuse immigrants.
“I can’t express how much joy I felt when we expanded my primary health care,” said Duzo. “Today, this joy, which I was so happy that joy turned into pain, that joy turned into shame.”
However, the Democratic Senate Pro Mike McGuire said, however, that the state has no choice.
“We are a state of immigrants, 10.6 million strong. And we will never turn away from those who are part of the largest economy in the United States of America,” said McGuire during the debate. “So we had to make difficult decisions. I know that we will not satisfy everyone.”
Obliged in New York
One state, New York, is especially in binding, because its constitution requires to provide protection for legally current unaccupies.
27 -year -old Roxana lived in the United States as part of a deferred childhood action program, known as DAC, because she was 8 years antique and uses her name only for fear that she would be attacked. At the end of 2019, she experienced a series of devastating symptoms, including pelvic pain and chronic fatigue, and discovered a non -cancerous lump on her breast.
“A chronic disease affected my professional trajectory with a lot of fatigue and chronic pain,” said Roxana, who lives in Bronx in New York.
Roxana cannot get financed by the federal medicaid. But she qualified for the state -financed public health insurance in New York. The court case in 2001, Aliessa against Novello, requires you to offer from the state to be financed by public health insurance to all legally present residents on the basis of the state constitution. So she could afford to go to the doctor, where she learned that she had a hormonal state called polycystic ovary syndrome or PCOS, and was able to remove the lump.
New York mostly chose a card for immigrants and other legally inhabited immigrants until 2016, when he launched a coverage, which he called the basic plan pursuant to the Act on inexpensive care in 2010, also known as Obamacare. Under ACAThe plan has no deductions or monthly contributions for patients, and the federal government collected almost the entire cost – 90% – a plan, a huge economic relief for the state.
Now New York is in the face of an annual loss of $ 13.5 billion in Medicaid federal funds and inexpensive care. In addition, the withdrawal of tax breaks for non -citizens on the basis of Trump’s law would lead to a loss of $ 7.5 billion annual financing to the basic plan of the state, which includes $ 1.7 million.
“These are billions of dollars that are taken and coming out of New York,” said Amir Bassi, Medicaid director at the New York State Health Department at the United Hospital Fund conference on July 30.
It is not clear whether and how the state can afford to cover people like Roxana, although it is required as part of the state constitution. Like other immigrants, she is terrified that in the face of cuts and decreasing access to the safety network for non -citizens, she will lose continuous health care and that her condition will deteriorate.
“My PCOS symptoms have just worsened over the years. I really want to try to access my health that I have to control it.”
Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be obtained at Satlani@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by Statlinewhich is part of StatesRoom, non -information information, which includes the Ohio Capital Journal, and is supported by subsidies and coalition of donors as 501C (3) public charity.
