Immigrants with DACA protections to be eligible for insurance coverage under Obamacare

Thousands of undocumented immigrants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program will able to obtain health care through the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare – under a new federal rule, U.S. officials announced Friday.

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The rule, expected to be published Friday by the Department of Health and Human Services, would grant those in the program access to health coverage and subsidies, according to The New York Times.

The new rule is set to go into effect in November.

The rule would not make DACA recipients eligible for the Medicaid program, according to senior administration officials, but would give the them coverage through the Affordable Care Act and its marketplaces and financial assistance programs.

The final rule (RIN 0938-AV23) modifies the definition of who is considered “lawfully present” and eligible to purchase a qualified health plan through the federal and state marketplaces.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which was established in 2012, protects from deportation undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. There are about 580,000 immigrants in the U.S. with DACA protections.

While DACA immigrants have been provided with work permits and other protections, those in the program have been barred from coverage of federally funded health insurance.

According to HHS, about 100,000 uninsured DACA recipients could obtain health insurance through the new rule, Bloomberg reported.

“DACA recipients are currently three times more likely to be uninsured than the general U.S. population, and individuals without health insurance are less likely to receive preventative or routine health screenings,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told reporters in a press call Thursday.

“They delay necessary medical care, and they incur higher costs and debts when they do finally seek care,” Becerra said.

President Joe Biden said he was “proud of the contributions” of DACA recipients to the United States and committed to supporting them.

“That’s why,” he said, his administration was “taking this historic step to ensure that DACA recipients have the same access to health care through the Affordable Care Act as their neighbors.”

Former President Donald Trump tried to dismantle the DACA program during his administration, but in 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the administration had improperly ended the program. The ruling left the program in place.

Last fall, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen sided with nine states trying to end the DACA program by barring the government from approving any new applications. The ruling left the program intact for existing recipients during the expected appeals process that is likely to end up before the Supreme Court.

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