Biden will expand immigrant access to US health plans

President Joe Biden is set to widen the scope of health plans available to hundreds of thousands of people who immigrated to the United States as children, according to reports. This decision will enable those who participate in the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to access government-funded health insurance programs, including Medicaid and Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges.

Individuals who receive DACA are allowed to work legally, but they do not have full legal status and are ineligible for various government benefits granted to citizens. They have been barred from government-subsidized health insurance policies, as they do not have a “lawful presence” in the US. However, the Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services reportedly seeks to overcome this obstacle. The expansion of DACA has faced legal challenges, with scores of cases being brought before courts, yet Congress has been held up in completely comprehensive policymaking on this matter.

DACA provides more than 580,000 people with legal protections, as per assessments from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. Many people without legal documentation who have not spent significant time in the US are uninsured. However, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that among the estimated 20 million undocumented individuals present in the US, about half are uninsured. As such, Biden has continually called on Congress to provide a path for citizenship for illegal immigrants alongside healthcare subsidies.

It is uncertain as to the costs generated by this expansion.