“It’s a compelling talking point to say that Democrats want to provide health care to undocumented immigrants, but it’s just not true in terms of the cuts they’re trying to reverse,” Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF, a nonprofit and nonpartisan health policy information organization, told The Associated Press. Further, under the OBBBA, many lawfully present immigrants who are eligible for Medicaid — such as asylum seekers, refugees, and survivors of human trafficking — will be rendered ineligible for the program in 2026 thanks to a section of the law titled “Alien Medicaid eligibility.” If that provision stays in place, then next year, approximately 1.4 million immigrants lawfully in the U.S. will lose health care coverage because Republicans severely restricted access to lawful permanent residents, Cuban and Haitian immigrants, and citizens of the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau. “This provision does not actually change coverage for immigrants, and indeed the CBO scored it as having no impact on coverage, because hospitals must still provide the health care, and states must still pay them for the health care, it’s just that the federal government will pay a smaller share of the cost.
Author: Peter Wade
Published at: 2025-10-05 20:31:54
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