A sign on the entrance to the American national arboretum, which is closed due to the closure of the federal government.
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Images Kevin Dietsch / Getty
The White House and the Congress Republicans say that democratic legislators have caused the federal government to be closed in an effort to extend health care to undocumented immigrants. However, like several independent experts interviewed by NPR Note, this assertion is false.
At the center of the confrontation is the law on the reduction of taxes of families of the Trump administration, also known as “One Big Beautiful Bill” by President Trump, signed in July.
Democrats say that this is equivalent to tax reductions for billionaires and pays them with deep cups of Medicaid. The White House insists that the law protects taxpayers by preventing undocumented immigrants from obtaining government health benefits – but these people have already been prohibited from Medicaid and the Act respecting affordable care (ACA), or Obamacare, exchanges.
“It’s a complete distortion,” said Leighton Ku, director of the Center for Health Policy Research at George Washington University. It’s “simply false in the details,” he said.
In the weeks ahead of the beginning of October 1 of the new financial year, when funding from the federal government was to expire, the GOP legislators presented a continuous resolution to extend funding until November 21. But the Democrats asked that it also includes an extension of the ACA subsidies – to be expired at the end of the year – and the inversion of the Medicaid cuts.
Republicans accused Democrats in the government’s holding in a “list of far left wishes”, including the financing of health care for “illegal foreigners”. The White House said Republicans’ legislation guarantees that “dollars of taxpayers are focused on American citizens and do not subsidize health care for illegal immigrants”.
Jonathan Gruber, president of the economy department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that the republican complaint is false. People living in the United States who are undocumented “are not eligible for Medicaid. They are not eligible for discussions tax credits (ACA Health Care),” he said.
KffA non -profit and non -partisan organization that analyzes national health problems, notes that American health coverage programs for immigrants are generally limited to those who are legally present. Medicaid and chip – which offers low -cost coverage for unhealthy children and pregnant women – are limited to immigrants with “qualified” status, such as refugees and constituent aces, most of whom must wait five years before registering.
According to the eligibility for Medicaid, the coverage of the Subsidized ACA market is available for these qualified immigrants, including those with temporary protected status or certain work visas, while MEDICAIDI admissibility is limited to immigrants who legally present age and work requirements, according to KFF. The Center for Children & Families of the McCourt School of Public Policy from the University of Georgetown also checked the complaint and achieve a similar conclusion.
On the other hand, Some states provide medical care entirely funded by the state for certain undocumented personsBut even these programs are being returned. From next year in CaliforniaFor example, undocumented adults will no longer be able to register for the Medi-Cal program of this state, although children are always covered regardless of their immigration status.
Gruber, who has worked on health and health care policy for several decades, says that the closure “does not concern undocumented immigrants who get health care. It involves reducing health insurance” for millions of low -income Americans.
THE Congress budget office Considers that federal expenses for Medicaid and the additional nutrition assistance program, or SNAP – another priority for Democrats – will be reduced by more than 1 Billion of Dollars during the next decade following provisions in the main bill.
Ku, from George Washington University, says that part of confusion is the definition of who is and who is not undocumented. “Sometimes, when Republicans use the expression” illegal immigrant “, they include people who really have legal status – such as asyères, refugees or those who have temporary protected status – simply because they don’t like them.”
Although the Medicaid emergency technically covers undocumented persons, it mainly serves as a safety net for hospitals, who are held by law to treat patients who arise in emergency rooms, regardless of their immigration status. “Medicaid simply helps hospitals to cover these costs,” said Ku.
“The Medicaid emergency is one or two billion dollars on a billion dollars program. This is a small fraction,” he adds. “This is a tail dog problem.
Gruber says health care is a complicated problem and “the more complicated the problem, the more easy it is to make a misleading complaint”.
A NPR / PBS News / Marist Poll Published earlier this week revealed that 38% of Americans blame the Republicans for the closure, 27% blame Democrats and 31% think that the two parties are to blame.
He says that for the Republicans, saying that the closure consists in extending health care to undocumented individuals “sounds well, it feels good, and it plays in the idea that people who” do not look like belonging here “get advantages. But it is simply not true.”
