DACA

Some guy, November 5th, 2023:

Back in April, the Associated Press reported that the Biden Administration planned on opening up eligibility for ACA exchange, Basic Health Program, Medicaid & CHIP coverage to hundreds of thousands of Americans who have Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals status:

President Joe Biden is set to announce that his administration is expanding eligibility for Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchanges to hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children, according to two U.S. officials briefed on the matter.

Back in April, the Associated Press reported that the Biden Administration planned on opening up eligibility for ACA exchange, Basic Health Program, Medicaid & CHIP coverage to hundreds of thousands of Americans who have Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals status:

President Joe Biden is set to announce that his administration is expanding eligibility for Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchanges to hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children, according to two U.S. officials briefed on the matter.

The action will allow participants in the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, to access government-funded health insurance programs. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter before the formal announcement on Thursday.

As I noted at the time:

Two weeks ago, the Associated Press reported that the Biden Administration planned on opening up eligibility for ACA exchange, Basic Health Program, Medicaid & CHIP coverage to hundreds of thousands of Americans who have Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals status:

President Joe Biden is set to announce that his administration is expanding eligibility for Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchanges to hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children, according to two U.S. officials briefed on the matter.

The action will allow participants in the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, to access government-funded health insurance programs. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter before the formal announcement on Thursday.

Last August, Ben D'Avanzo of the National Immigration Law Center wrote a guest post here at ACA Signups about the 23% of uninsured Americans who are immigrants, and the challenges in providing healthcare coverage for them. In it, he noted that:

...given the slow nature of congressional action, the Biden administration can take some important steps now. For example, HHS could make hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients eligible for ACA coverage through regulatory action. It could also build on its existing investment in outreach and assistance programs to fund more Navigators and other community organizations that are best suited for immigrant-focused enrollment work.

Hawaii Senate Bill 842 was introduced in January by 10 Democratic state legislators.

I've grown to absolutely love the way Hawaii state legislation summarizes the situation being addressed by the bill in question; they don't hold any punches in explaining why the bill is necessary:

The legislature finds that obstacles to access to health care based solely on immigration status prevent many low-income immigrants and immigrants' families from obtaining affordable health care coverage through medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and health insurance exchanges established under part II of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Sunday, July 19th, 2020:

Wallace: "But you've been in office 3 1/2 years, you don't have a plan..."

Trump: "But we haven't had...uh...excuse me...you heard me yesterday. We're signing a healthcare plan...within two weeks. A full and complete healthcare plan that the Supreme Court decision on DACA gave me the right to do. So we're gonna solve...we're gonna sign an immigration plan, a healthcare plan, and various other plans....and nobody will have done what I'm doing in the next four weeks.

It's been thirteen days.

Yesterday Donald Trump was interviewed by Chris Wallace on FOX News Sunday. It was full of the usual batcrap insane lies and babbling on Trump's part, but one exchange in particular caught my attention:

Wallace: "I want to talk to you about Obamacare. Since the pandemic hit, millions of people have lost their jobs, and thereby lost their health insurance. Almost a half million have signed up for Obamacare. Your administration just announced that you're signing onto a lawsuit to overturn Obamacare..."

Trump: "And replace it."

Wallace: "Why does it make sense to overturn Obamacare, which people are now relying on...Democrats are gonna say, the man who's wanted to kill Obamacare is gonna take it away...the protections for pre-existing conditions..."

Trump: "First of all, we got rid of the individual mandate, pre-existing conditions will always be taken care of by me and Republicans, 100%.."

Wallace: "But you've been in office 3 1/2 years, you don't have a plan..."

That's really about the simplest way I can summarize the situation today:

Daily on Healthcare: Dems agree to deal to reopen government, fund CHIP

by Philip Klein , Robert King and Kimberly Leonard | Jan 22, 2018, 12:52 PM

Dems agree to deal to reopen government, fund CHIP.

The Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) has been around for 21 years. It was co-created in a bipartisan way in 1997 by Sen. Ted Kennedy and Sen. Orrin Hatch, with support from Hillary Clinton while she was First Lady of the United States.

CHIP was originally funded as a 10-year program. When the original funding ran out in 2007, it was extended for two years (to 2009) under George W. Bush with little incident (he had previously vetoed an expanded version but later signed the extension of the existing version).

Under President Obama, CHIP was extended (and expanded) again through 2013. The Affordable Care Act added another 2 years to CHIP, extending funding through 2015. In 2015, CHIP funding was extended again, through September 30, 2017.

The completely GOP-controlled Congress allowed CHIP funding to expire. Most state still had a few months worth of money held in reserve for the program, but some started sending out termination notices to the parents of enrollees, letting them know that they'd be kicked off the program within the next month or two.