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 who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children
Posted BY: | NwoReport
WASHINGTON (AP) — 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.
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The 2012 DACA initiative was meant to shield from deportation immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents as young children and to allow them to work legally in the country. However, the immigrants were still ineligible for government-subsidized health insurance programs because they did not meet the definition of having a “lawful presence” in the U.S. That’s what Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services will aim to change by the end of the month.
The White House action comes as the DACA program is in legal peril and the number of people eligible under the program is shrinking.
