State Now Covers Undocumented Kids
When Fabiola Ortiz heard California had granted health coverage to poor children lacking legal immigration status, she felt grateful. Since arriving in the U.S. illegally 12 years ago, she has taken her two youngest children to the doctor only for required school physicals and relied on home remedies for everything else.
“The truth is that we really need insurance,” the 46-year-old Anaheim resident said. “For the children, it will be a big help.”
The coverage under Medi-Cal is expected to result in more preventive care and better long-term health for an estimated 170,000 children who have long relied on safety-net clinics and emergency rooms. But while many policymakers, advocates and researchers celebrated the budget deal announced by Gov. Jerry Brown last month, they also said the new coverage is limited because it doesn’t guarantee access to doctors and doesn’t include adults.
“This is an important investment,” said Claire D. Brindis, director of the University of California San Francisco’s Institute for Health Policy Studies. “But it is not the full solution.”
About 1.16 million low-income adults are in California illegally and ineligible for comprehensive Medi-Cal services, though they may qualify for pregnancy and emergency care. In many areas of the state, they can get county-based coverage, but it also is not comprehensive and can’t be used in other counties.
Orange County, where Ortiz lives, doesn’t offer such coverage. She wishes the state would allow her and her oldest son to sign up for Medi-Cal, too. He is 22 and has heart problems that have landed him in the emergency room about three times a year. She has to pay out-of-pocket for his regular visits to a cardiologist.
State Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, has proposed legislation that could extend Medi-Cal to low-income adults living in the state illegally.
The bill also requests a waiver from the federal government enabling higher-income immigrants to buy unsubsidized insurance through the state’s insurance marketplace.
In the meantime, Aracely Patchett, an administrator at Central City Community Health Center in Anaheim, where Ortiz gets care, said the new health coverage will enable her staff to refer the children to specialists. “Not being able to provide the care they deserve has been frustrating,” she said.
The children’s insurance will only help health and immigration advocates in their fight to cover everyone, said Wendy Lazarus, co-president of The Children’s Partnership, a nonprofit child advocacy organization.
“It is a hugely important step forward for the state,” she said.
Opponents said California shouldn’t force its citizens to pay for healthcare for people here illegally.
“We’re talking about transferring tens of millions of dollars from taxpayers–citizens and lawful permanent residents–to those who have flouted our nation’s immigration laws and are now laying claim to the property of others,” said John C. Eastman, a law professor at Chapman University.
Eastman said the magnet for illegal immigration was already large enough in California.
About 2.3 million people have joined the Medi-Cal rolls since the beginning of 2014, when the Affordable Care Act took full effect. About half the children in the state are now on Medi-Cal.
Experience has shown that even when immigrants living here illegally qualify for coverage, they may not apply. UC researchers found that many adults under 30 who were granted temporary legal status and became eligible for Medi-Cal were still likely to remain uninsured. That’s because they weren’t aware of their eligibility or were worried about the effect on relatives in the country without legal permission.
Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan health policy research and communication organization not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
