About 700,000 adults between ages 26 and 49 will be eligible as of Jan. 1

California will welcome the new year by becoming the first state to offer health insurance for all undocumented immigrants.

Starting Jan. 1, all undocumented immigrants, regardless of age, will qualify for Medi-Cal, California’s version of the federal Medicaid program for people with low incomes.

Previously, undocumented immigrants were not qualified to receive comprehensive health insurance but were allowed to receive emergency and pregnancy-related services under Medi-Cal as long as they met eligibility requirements, including income limits and California residency in 2014.

  • ArtificialLink@lemy.lol
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    10 months ago

    I’m going to say it and I consider myself very liberal. But why are we providing insurance for them when we’re not even covering our own citizens?? How does this benefit the people who live in California and contribute to its GDP in a significant way? And I’m not saying undocumented immigrants don’t contribute to the gdP but they are undocumented. Everything happens under the table if they are. I would much rather California work on universal healthcare system for their state that includes immigrants. And I’m definitely not saying just because they’re undocumented doesn’t mean they don’t deserve this. But where is the benefit? These people can’t vote. They’re not paying taxes. Yet they’re reaping rewards of other people who do. Why doesn’t California put this money towards its massive homeless problem or it’s massive drug problem or it’s massive crime problem? I just simply do not understand why they would make something like this a priority over so many other problem ?

    And before y’all eat me alive.I am genuinely asking because I don’t understand why this is something they feel is important? There are so many other issues plaguing their state alone. Why do they feel this is a priority when we’re not even taking care of our own citizens? Please only respond if you can genuinely give me insightful information or an education on this. Because like i said i consider myself very liberal and in other context I’d think this is great. But we are facing some many challenges just among our own documented citizens that i just feel like this is a great step but not the step we should be taking.

    • 11181514@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      “we’re not even covering our own citizens”

      “We” already are. If by “we” you mean Californians.

      Also what’s the alternative here? ER’s can’t deny help based on insurance. So if an immigrant goes to the hospital, should the hospital foot the bill or should that be covered by the state?

      Bringing homelessness, crime, and drugs into this is a false dichotomy. Those are separate issues. But hey if people aren’t going broke from getting sick maybe homelessness, crime, and drug use may go down. If you’re trying to fix those issues then health care should be top of your list anyway.

      And like other comments have stated, they DO pay taxes.

      And all that being said, when I need to go to the dentist, I go to Mexico because it’s cheaper even with health insurance here.

      • TheOriginalGregToo@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I’ve got a wacky idea. What if we took the $4 billion annually that we’re spending to cover noncitizens, and we instead put that money into covering MORE citizens? Raise the cutoff for citizens so that more of them benefit.

        • 11181514@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I’ve got a wacky idea. What if we treated people as people and didn’t discriminate based on where they happened to be born? Especially in this case where we’re talking about people who live in the state, report their income, and pay taxes contributing to everyone’s state funded healthcare.

          • morriscox@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            I guess the essence of the problem is should people who sneak into the country (including using anchor babies) be treated as good or better than those who were born here or came here legitimately?

          • Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Other countries don’t do that. Of course other countries don’t have ridiculous costs for healthcare but when I moved to Germany I was required to get private health insurance as a legal resident. If you’re injured in practically any other country (unless you’re an asylum resident) you don’t receive government assist benefits at all for anything.

            Government benefits should be for citizens first and foremost. Everyone else shouldn’t be ignored but they should come second

            • 11181514@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              What does “come second” mean? Like they wait in a longer line? They get worse doctors?

              And just because other countries don’t help immigrants is hardly an argument that they shouldn’t be helped. WHY shouldn’t they get health care?

            • greencactus@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Correct me if I’m wrong, but as far as you know you only need to have a health insurance. No one forces you to pick a certain one, public of private.

                  • Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world
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                    10 months ago

                    The funny thing is you get quicker care if you have private. A lot of Europeans don’t realize they’re closer to American style healthcare than they care to admit.

                    They really take it for granted

        • nxdefiant@startrek.website
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          10 months ago

          California: About 40 million people.

          4 billion/40 million= 100.

          $100 dollars extra per person OR health coverage for literally every person in California regardless of their status.

          • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            You can’t even get a bandaid from a nurse for that. Pretty sure the hospital tried to charge me around that price because some admin stuck his head in a few hours after my youngest child was born and asked us if we were doing fine. Wellness check.

          • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Why raise taxes? Universal Healthcare would cost less than 2/3 of what we currently spend anyway. We could lower taxes and implement it.

        • chitak166@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          You mean expand coverage to those who can afford it just because they’re citizens?

          That’s not the purpose of the program.

        • Syringe@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Preventative care is ENORMOUSLY cheaper than emergency care. Hospitals have a mandate to provide life saving care to anyone regardless of insurance or documentation status. When they don’t have health insurance, they wait until it’s an emergency and either destabilize the hospital system or raise premiums for everyone.

          This is another example where “it’s just cheaper to pay for it”. It’s also another position that so called conservatives are against, even though it’s far more fiscally conservative to support. Guess y’all can’t get past that crab mentality.

    • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Immigrants are part of any economy that flourishes. Always has been. Egypt, Rome, France, England all had a high population of immigration. It’s to be expected with the world’s six largest economy (even bigger than Russia’s) there is a need for those doing these sorts of jobs to be taken care of.

      As others have pointed out, they do pay taxes. They do live here. Health care should be a human right. Not a bargaining chip. The fact that universal health care isn’t even considered an option for the US is ridiculous.

    • Fecundpossum@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Are you a California voter? If you are, youre asking a very good question. If you’re not, well, there’s no we involved, this is a state funded program, and the state of California actually pays more in to the federal government than it receives from it, so it can prop up freeloading red states, primarily the south. So, as a non Californian, not my circus, not my monkeys.

      All of that said, I agree with you, American citizens should benefit from American tax dollars before anyone else.

    • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      I think it’s because it’s ultimately cheaper to cover them than to let them go to the emergency room and have to pay exorbitant prices on the back end. That’s a guess though.

      • kerrigan778@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Experience. It’s very easy to lose medi-cal for making still not enough to afford rent.

        • meeeeetch@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          The Medicaid income limit that you’re referring to will apply to the undocumented immigrants too.

          It’s not like they’re expanding Medi-Cal to be available to “citizens within the income limit and any undocumented immigrant regardless of financial eligibility”

        • I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          The benefits cliff is real and it sucks. I think Covered California does a pretty good job bridging the healthcare gap at least. Housing and nutrition assistance, not so much.

        • chitak166@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Well, renting is one of the biggest scams the working class has fallen for.

          I don’t think not being able to afford rent is a reason to withhold healthcare from those who need it.

          Instead, it should be a reason to take action to reduce the amount you’re paying for rent.

          Unfortunately, that doesn’t make rich people richer or fulfill your entitlement to live wherever you want so I don’t think useful idiots will be proud of it.

    • TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id
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      10 months ago

      The answer to your question is this; do the math. It turns out that it’s less expensive to cover everyone than it is to rely on a system wherein illegals can only access healthcare at the ER.

      It really is as simple as that.

    • DreBeast@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      You’re so close. It’s true. Why give them when we don’t have it covered for ourselves.

      You hint on a lot of other issues too, like homelessness and drug programs.

      I’ll say this, we do not have an issue with funding. For example we can look at other countries that do have proper funding for these programs and their gdp is nowhere near what the US generates. And yet we struggle!?

      We have problems that we can’t solve alone but we are indoctrinated into thinking that we can.

      We don’t need to throw this money away, but we do. Somebody will get paid a boat load of money and some poor immigrant will receive substandard healthcare. All this is working as intended and someone in 50 years will ask the same question.

    • prole@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      We take in ~$12 billion in taxes a year from undocumented immigrants. From people who will likely never receive benefits like social security or Medicare.

    • sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz
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      10 months ago

      Having a large group of people living in your society without healthcare is just asking for huge (expensive) trouble. And it’s not like it’s more than the documented Californian’s have access to. In addition, Medi-Cal gives access to mental health and drug abuse counseling and help. California is really nice. There’s a reason so freaking many people have moved here (although I was pleasantly surprised to see more moved out last year! Hope that trend continues). The cost of housing has gone crazy (for a long while now), which studies have shown has a direct correlation with homelessness. Don’t let the propaganda get to you. California, like just about every state (and really just about every country I’ve ever been to), has mostly pleasant, friendly people and livable areas. And sure, some really, really shitty areas. Several obvious problems, and pretty straightforward ways to solve a lot of them, but politics and politicians just can’t handle big, long-impact decisions these days.

    • 31337@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      Yeah, I’m curious how it helps them politically too. Don’t get me wrong, it seems like a good thing to do, morally, but I can only see negatives politically. Could be an attempt to save money on ER, but I’m not sure if it’s the state that picks up that tab. Could be an attempt to keep their working population healthier, saving money on productivity. Could’ve been lobbied for by the healthcare industry to reduce their costs, or industries that employ undocumented workers to make them more productive. Could be to secure the votes of citizens with undocumented parents/relatives.

      I’m not a Californian, but it seems like a lot of the Democratic politicians there are grifters, and only care about themselves, getting re-elected, and climbing the political ladder; especially Newsom. So, I suppose they think this benefits them in some way, but I’m not sure how.

      • ArtificialLink@lemy.lol
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        10 months ago

        Don’t worry, everyone just responded about how I was wrong that they don’t really pay taxes. And instead completely missed the point of what I was asking even though i made it clear lol. I think most people in government are self-serving now on either side. Well, the reality is actually they’re not self-serving theyre company serving. It seems like in today’s society government officials are beholden to large companies over the people.