The Biden administration is expanding health coverage under Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act to beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), delivering a long-sought victory for immigrant advocates.
The new rule means the 600,000 immigrants with active DACA status will be able to apply for coverage through their state Medicaid agencies and through the federal health insurance marketplace, where they may qualify for financial assistance based on income. But that victory might be short-lived if the DACA program itself is overturned in court, where it is currently under threat. If DACA is overturned, that could leave hundreds of thousands of DACA beneficiaries, or so-called “DREAMers,” at sudden risk of deportation.
Since 2012, DACA has shielded 800,000 immigrants who came to the US as children without authorization from deportation and offered them work permits, but not access to government health benefits. That has made DACA recipients the exception among immigrant populations protected from deportation under other programs, including parole and temporary protected status. And it’s in spite of the fact that DACA recipient households pay $6.2 billion in federal taxes and $3.3 billion in state and local taxes every year, offsetting the costs of programs like Medicaid for Americans.
The Department of Health and Human Services proposed a rule Thursday that would finally rectify that inequity, allowing the roughly 47 percent of DREAMers who are uninsured access to coverage. It would do so by explicitly including DACA recipients in the category of “lawfully present” immigrants. The White House set a goal of finalizing the measure by the end of the month.
“This will be a welcome end to the longtime bar on eligibility that has kept many people from being able to access affordable health coverage,” said Shelby Gonzales, vice president for immigration policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “Part of…
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