California expanding health insurance to undocumented immigrants (San Diego: low income, obgyn)

[treiu]

California expanding health insurance to undocumented immigrants:


SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — California is expanding the state’s health insurance program for low-income residents to cover all undocumented immigrants starting next Monday.

Starting January 1st, an estimated 764,000 low-income people aged 26-49 will be eligible for Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program regardless of immigration status.

"I think it's great. Everybody deserves to have medical help as a human right,” Vivar said.

The California Senate Republican Caucus criticized the move in an analysis of the governor's 2022-2023 budget posted online.

"Medi-Cal is already strained by serving 14.6 million Californians-more than a third of the state's population. Adding 764,000 more individuals to the system will certainly exacerbate current provider access problems,” the caucus wrote.

Even after the changes take effect next week, many working poor individuals will still be ineligible for the program, which is income-based.
The move, which is estimated to cost taxpayers an estimated $2.6 billion annually, is being celebrated by Robert Vivar.

The San Diego immigrant rights’ advocate is now a legal permanent resident but used to be undocumented.

"One of my big concerns was health care. You know, getting up there in age, working on construction at any moment you could fall sick, or you could get injured."


[url]https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/california-expanding-health-insurance-to-all-undocumented-immigrants[/url]

[Jimrob1]

[quote=treiu;66245050]California expanding health insurance to undocumented immigrants:


SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — California is expanding the state’s health insurance program for low-income residents to cover all undocumented immigrants starting next Monday.

Starting January 1st, an estimated 764,000 low-income people aged 26-49 will be eligible for Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program regardless of immigration status.

"I think it's great. Everybody deserves to have medical help as a human right,” Vivar said.

The California Senate Republican Caucus criticized the move in an analysis of the governor's 2022-2023 budget posted online.

"Medi-Cal is already strained by serving 14.6 million Californians-more than a third of the state's population. Adding 764,000 more individuals to the system will certainly exacerbate current provider access problems,” the caucus wrote.

Even after the changes take effect next week, many working poor individuals will still be ineligible for the program, which is income-based.
The move, which is estimated eing celebrated by Robert Vivar.

The San Diego immigrant rights’ advocate is now a legal permanent resident but used to be undocumented.

"One of my big concerns was health care. You know, getting up there in age, working on construction at any moment you could fall sick, or you could get injured."


I can't say I'm surprised by this decision in California. I expect it's just a matter of time before Massachusetts offers them Health Insurance. I've noticed be it Calif, Mass or a number of other states. People that are undocumented are being treated very well. They are offered quite a number of benefits, that many native to the USA never get. I don't need a Crystal Ball to see there is an intentional change of population going on in this country. It's obvious the Govt be it Federal or State is letting us know, that they don't care about their citizens. I don't agree with California's decision concerning undocumented Health Care, but I imagine Newsom is very happy. I think its is a slap in the face to every Californian, especially the many that go without Health Care.

[blameyourself]

Duplicate thread from political forum, which you already responded to there

https://www.city-data.com/forum/poli...er-health.html

[njbiodude]

Originally Posted by blameyourself

Duplicate thread from political forum, which you already responded to there

https://www.city-data.com/forum/poli...er-health.html

It’s also very much an important issue to California residents due to costs
, potential crowding of healthcare facilities, further increased immigration etc so probably should be in the CA forum.

[MechAndy]

I agree that it is an important issue for California due to costs.
I strongly think we could budget healthcare for all if we cut out or severely hobbled BigPharma and Healthcare lobbyists.
It might mean lowering the age of Medicare a year or so at a time to ease into it but we could do it.
I mean how many hundreds of billions did we psss away this last few years?

On another note,
We always seem to point the ugly finger at the other person that is costing us (and I’m not saying that they don’t) but when it comes to any form of government handout almost everyone wants to be first in line for their piece of the pie and they don’t care who is paying for it.

We seem to be playing King Rat at the amusement of the Overlords .

[BeerGeek40]

Originally Posted by treiu

California expanding health insurance to undocumented immigrants:


SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — California is expanding the state’s health insurance program for low-income residents to cover all undocumented immigrants starting next Monday.

Starting January 1st, an estimated 764,000 low-income people aged 26-49 will be eligible for Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program regardless of immigration status.

"I think it's great. Everybody deserves to have medical help as a human right,” Vivar said.

The California Senate Republican Caucus criticized the move in an analysis of the governor's 2022-2023 budget posted online.

"Medi-Cal is already strained by serving 14.6 million Californians-more than a third of the state's population. Adding 764,000 more individuals to the system will certainly exacerbate current provider access problems,” the caucus wrote.

Even after the changes take effect next week, many working poor individuals will still be ineligible for the program, which is income-based.
The move, which is estimated to cost taxpayers an estimated $2.6 billion annually, is being celebrated by Robert Vivar.

The San Diego immigrant rights’ advocate is now a legal permanent resident but used to be undocumented.

"One of my big concerns was health care. You know, getting up there in age, working on construction at any moment you could fall sick, or you could get injured."


https://www.10news.com/news/local-ne...ted-immigrants

California expanding health insurance to illegal aliens.

Fixed it.

[njbiodude]

Originally Posted by MechAndy

I agree that it is an important issue for California due to costs.
I strongly think we could budget healthcare for all if we cut out or severely hobbled BigPharma and Healthcare lobbyists.
It might mean lowering the age of Medicare a year or so at a time to ease into it but we could do it.
I mean how many hundreds of billions did we psss away this last few years?

On another note,
We always seem to point the ugly finger at the other person that is costing us (and I’m not saying that they don’t) but when it comes to any form of government handout almost everyone wants to be first in line for their piece of the pie and they don’t care who is paying for it.

We seem to be playing King Rat at the amusement of the Overlords .

I think the best way to approach it is more a system like Switzerland than pure Bernie Sanders nonsense where everyone expects everything free.

Government medicare buy ins should be available to employees for a price and people that are unemployed or self employed and below a certain income (which needs to be adjusted for COL) should be allowed to automatically enroll. It should be 80/20% where the gov pays 80% and the patient pays 20% like it is with seniors. The remaining 20% should be allowed to be paid either out of pocket or through individualized private insurance that allows one to select their needs (i.e a 35 year old man won’t need to buy insurance that covers OBGYN visits, gender affirming care or childhood dentistry).

That would have the added bonus of at least allowing Medicare to negotiate prices down for all drugs and medical devices if most people are on it too.

Giving MediCal to illegal immigrants on the other hand means all citizens with insurance will pay more to cover these people. Most providers end up price gouging paying customers to make up for losses in very low Medicaid reimbursement. The end result is even higher premiums.

But Gavin thinks he has the Hispanic vote with this. And vote buying is all that matters.

[Axxlrod]

Ridiculous. And the rest of us will be told we're not paying our "fair share" and to pay more taxes.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by Jimrob1;

I can't say I'm surprised by this decision in California. I expect it's just a matter of time before Massachusetts offers them Health Insurance. I've noticed be it Calif, Mass or a number of other states. People that are undocumented are being treated very well. They are offered quite a number of benefits, that many native to the USA never get. I don't need a Crystal Ball to see there is an intentional change of population going on in this country. It's obvious the Govt be it Federal or State is letting us know, that they don't care about their citizens. I don't agree with California's decision concerning undocumented Health Care, but I imagine Newsom is very happy. I think its is a slap in the face to every Californian, especially the many that go without Health Care.

Or maybe it does. Having a significant percentage of local and regional populations with no access to health care can turn into a public health nightmare, in pandemic situations, cholera outbreaks (which have happened in CA and elsewhere in the US, as I recall in the not-too-distant past), and similar issues. The same concerns apply to homeless populations and other US citizens as well.

What CA state citizens don't have access to health care? Isn't that what MediCal is for?

[njbiodude]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

What CA state citizens don't have access to health care? Isn't that what MediCal is for?

Self-employed people in small businesses particularly those that aren’t making lots of money but are over the minimums to qualify (which in expensive areas of the state is easy—income requirments need to be better adjusted for local cost of living)

People with jobs with low income but not low enough to qualify for MediCal while struggling to pay insurance for their families.

People that work part-time as students but have parental income that disqualifies them from MediCal

People that are laid off but are above the maximum income amounts for the year but have families to support and mortgages to pay in very expensive parts of the state and struggle paying health insurance.

People with families switching jobs and waiting months before their new insurance becomes active. The wait period of 3 months can easily cost a family 3-6k for coverage.

If all these people were automatically provided with the option for MediCal coverage then I still probably wouldn’t support illegals getting it. But as it is a lot of struggling middle class families are going to be paying higher premiums to support another 700k “low income people” now (many will be high paid construction tradesmen and women paid in cash that automatically qualify).