2.6 million undocumented residents banned from Obamacare in California
Public Citizen’s own healthcare policy advocate Vijay Das co-wrote an Op-Ed for Univision with health insurance industry executive turned consumer advocate Wendell Potter about the need for Medicaid expansion for undocumented adults. Following the narrative of Isabel Sanches, a mother of three living in East Los Angeles, the piece demonstrates that while legislation that would expand the Affordable Care Act to allow undocumented adults to purchase plans on the marketplace does not help the nearly 1.4 million undocumented individuals that earn incomes to qualify for Medicaid in California alone. You can read more from the piece below.
Isabel Sanches and her husband moved from Michoacán, Mexico to East Los Angeles twenty years ago. They crossed the southern border in search for a better life, job, a good neighborhood to raise their three sons free of street violence and poverty. Like many 40 somethings, Isabel is starting to frequent the doctor more. Despite learning English and attending community college, she remains a heart attack, a slip, a fall away from financial ruin.
Isabel is among California’s 2.67 million undocumented residents, the largest share in the nation. She is banned from buying an Obamacare plan.
However unfair, that was written into the Affordable Care Act. Through My Health L.A., Isabel is lucky to live in a county that covers undocumented adults. But this program is overwhelmed with patients. It’s not meant to address her chronic health problems.
In California at least, things are improving.
You can read the rest of the article here.