Q&A – Will Illegal Immigrants Be Given Free Healthcare by the Biden Administration?
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Today’s Entry: @brianmuddradio Is it true that illegal immigrants are going to be given free healthcare by Biden?
Bottom Line: Free, no. Subsidized by taxpayers yes – unless something changes between now and November 1st. So, here’s what happened. On Friday, amid a crush of other national news in the cycle, came a proposed rule change to Affordable Care Act eligibility for the upcoming year (2025). The rule change is set to change the definition of who’s “lawfully present” and thus eligible for ACA plans within the United States. As stated by the HHS:
- Under this rule, DACA recipients will be treated the same as other individuals granted deferred action for purposes of eligibility for coverage through a Marketplace plan or a BHP (Basic Health Program).
In commenting on this rule change the Department of Health and Human Services put out this press release: As part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s ongoing commitment to ensuring affordable, quality health care for all, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), finalized a rule that will expand access to health care for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients. Today’s rule ensures DACA recipients will no longer be excluded from eligibility to enroll in a Qualified Health Plan (QHP) through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Health Insurance Marketplace, or for coverage through a Basic Health Program (BHP). CMS estimates that this rule could lead to 100,000 previously uninsured DACA recipients enrolling in health coverage through Marketplaces or a BHP.
The most radical statement of all came from HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra who stated: HHS is committed to making health coverage accessible for people DACA recipients – Dreamers – who have worked hard to live the American Dream. Dreamers are our neighbors and friends; they are students, teachers, social workers, doctors, and nurses. More importantly, they are fellow Americans. Except, of course, DACA recipients most certainly are not American citizens. If they were American citizens, we wouldn’t be having this rule change or this conversation. Apparently, according to the current Secretary of Health and Human Services, if an illegal immigrant lives in this country for a while they’re considered “Americans”.
Importantly within this conversation, and for what happens going forward is this... As of today, those originally part of the Obama Administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy are illegal immigrants. The most recent federal court ruling last year stated that DACA recipients retained no legal status in this country. That ruling is currently under appeal to a federal appeals court and potentially eventually to the United States Supreme Court. For that reason, the rule change is in effect opening up subsided ACA plans to illegal immigrants who were once defined as DACA recipients. As for what that looks like from a taxpayer's perspective.
Federal taxpayers now pay over $1.1 trillion annually for ACA subsidies. In just over a decade, it’s become one of the most expensive federal government programs in existence. For the current year the average full price premium for ACA plans is $605 per month. Of the 21.4 million people currently enrolled in an ACA Marketplace Plan, 19.7 million receive federal subsidies paid for through federal tax dollars. The average cost of a plan after subsidies is $111 per month. That means that taxpayers are footing the bill for an average of $494 per month per ACA plan, or in other words, taxpayers are footing the bill for an average of 82% of the cost of Obamacare plans (in addition to paying for their own healthcare).
If this rule goes through as finalized November 1st, just prior to Election Day, and all other averages hold, it would cost taxpayers an extra $592.8 million annually to subsidize healthcare plans for illegal immigrants. And of course, the next question becomes, if subsided healthcare is offered to one set of illegal immigrants through an administration rule change, what’s to keep it from happening with others? I would imagine there will be legal challenges to this rule prior to it going into place. It’s blatantly illegal without DACA recipients retaining lawful status which speaks to the extremist nature of the Biden administration. The status of this rule change is worth watching for multiple reasons.