Obama’s Executive Order on Immigration Is Unlikely to Include Health Benefits
WASHINGTON — Millions of undocumented immigrants who are set to be granted a form of legal status by President Obama as early as this week will not receive one key benefit: government subsidies for health care available under the Affordable Care Act.
Mr. Obama is preparing to use his executive authority to provide work permits for up to five million people who are in the United States illegally, and to shield them from deportation. But an official familiar with the administration’s deliberations said on Tuesday that such people would not be eligible for subsidized, low-cost plans from the government’s health insurance marketplace, HealthCare.gov.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the president has not announced details of the plan, said the immigrants would most likely be treated the same way that so-called Dreamers — undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children — were under a similar executive action in 2012. The Dreamers did not receive health care benefits.
The decision would reflect the political sensitivities that arise when there is a collision between two of the most divisive issues in Washington: health care and immigration. It would also underline the White House preference for not risking the fury of conservative lawmakers who have long opposed providing government health care to illegal immigrants, and who fought intensely to deny such immigrants coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
“The costs of extending these programs to millions of low-wage illegal immigrants would be enormous,” said Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the senior Republican on the Senate Budget Committee. “This is yet another danger posed to Americans by the president’s unconstitutional action.”
But a White House decision to deny health care benefits to the immigrants would also fall far short of the kind of full membership in American society that activists have spent decades fighting for. The immigrants would also be unlikely to receive benefits like food stamps, Medicaid coverage or other need-based federal programs offered to citizens and to some legal residents.
White House officials declined to provide details about the president’s plan. But because the executive actions will be an extension of Mr. Obama’s 2012 policy on Dreamers, the immigrants included in Mr. Obama’s orders will not be granted full legal status. Mr. Obama has
there are limits to what he can do with executive authority, and he has urged Congress to pass a more comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws that could provide a way for immigrants to become citizens eventually.
In the meantime, the health care restriction may be the most immediate concern for many immigrants, and for campaigners who have urged Mr. Obama to act to prevent deportations. Advocates for immigrant rights were infuriated in 2012 when the White House ruled that Dreamers would not get subsidized insurance coverage.
