Nearly Half a Million Eligible Immigrants Lose Healthcare Coverage Due to Systemic Verification Flaws
Immigration and citizenship changes have led to drastic changes for people with Obamacare, with more than 400,000 people seeing their insurance coverage canceled over the last 12 months.
The Associated Press reports those figures represent a four time increase over just the last year.
While Obama administration officials insist they are simply following the letter of the law, the end result has left those facing issues submitting immigration or citizenship documentation with little time to resolve the matter, perhaps leading some to seek alternative coverage of some sort.
It's a system of verification some critics are blasting as flawed, and one ohers insist is forcing people, who should otherwise be eligible beneficiaries, to pay overly steep prices.
"Same dog, different collar," said Jane Delgado, president of the National Alliance for Hispanic Health. "The bottom line is people got taken off health insurance when they applied in good faith."
The National Immigration Law Center recently concluded the overwhelming majority of the 423,000 people whose coverage has been stripped are legal U.S. residents simply caught in a complicated, inefficient system for maintaining checks and balances.
"Somebody who is trying to submit documents over and over ... is someone who believes they have an eligible immigration status," said Angel Padilla, the center's health policy analyst. A total of 109,000 people lost coverage because of citizenship and immigration issues during all of 2014.
Obamacare laws stipulate that only citizens and legal U.S. residents are entitled to coverage through the new insurance markets that offer subsidized policies. This year, there is a 95-day window for providing documentation proving citizenship, compared to 2014 when there was no time line on the books.
To date, Hispanics have been among the biggest beneficiaries of the Affordable Care Act. A recent government poll shows that the number of uninsured Latino adults ages 18-64 dropped from nearly 41 percent in 2013 to about 28 percent over the first three months of this year.
Though the administration has touted signing up more Hispanics as one of its most ambitious goals, many Republicans have long charged the system foolishly dispenses health benefits to people who are not legally entitled to them.
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