Trump Orders Ban on Immigrants Who Can’t Pay for Health Care
U.S. to Deny Visas to Immigrants Unless They Can Pay Health Care
(Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration said it won’t admit immigrants who can’t cover their own medical costs, a policy criticized as likely to lead to separations for some families and that could quickly face legal challenges.
Would-be immigrants will need to show they’ll be covered by health insurance within 30 days of entering the U.S. or have the financial resources to pay their medical bills, or be denied visas, President Donald Trump said in a proclamation issued late Friday.
The move aims to reject those “who will financially burden the United States health care system,” according to the proclamation.
The measure, set to take effect Nov. 3, highlights Trump’s tough stance on immigrants that was central to his 2016 campaign, and remains prominent heading into the 2020 election. It also comes as the president is under pressure from a fast-moving impeachment inquiry.
It follows a move in August aimed at weeding out immigrants deemed likely to access various forms of taxpayer-funded assistance, such as food stamps or subsidized housing.
“Donald Trump is panicking, and using cruel attacks on immigrants to distract and sow fear,” Julian Castro, a Democratic candidate for president and a former Obama administration cabinet member, said on Twitter.
The move effectively creates a mandate for immigrants to have health care insurance, after the administration overturned the Obama-era rule for all Americans to have coverage, which was a setback for efforts to reduce the level of uninsured in the U.S.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, tweeted that the move was “hypocrisy, xenophobia, and barbarism.”
In the proclamation, Trump said costs of services provided by hospitals that don’t get reimbursed has topped $35 billion each year in the past decade, and immigrants are about three times more likely to lack health insurance then U.S. citizens.
“While our health care system grapples with the challenges caused by uncompensated care, the United States Government is making the problem worse by admitting thousands of aliens who have not demonstrated any ability to pay for their health care costs,” Trump said.
Catch-22 Created
Other lawmakers objected.
“President Trump is shamelessly targeting & punishing low-income immigrants & families,” the 38-member Congressional Hispanic Caucus said a tweet. “Trump’s order will separate U.S. citizens from their legal immigrant spouses & loved ones. Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda has no bounds & is hurting American families.”
The policy creates a Catch-22 for some families, said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. Lawful immigrants qualify for health care subsidies, but “subsidized coverage does not qualify as insurance under the proclamation,” Levitt said in a tweet.
“Health insurance is hard enough for immigrants to access in this country; it’s hard enough for citizens too,” the immigrant rights group United We Dream said on Twitter.
--With assistance from Frances Schwartzkopff.
To contact the reporters on this story: Andrew Davis in London at abdavis@bloomberg.net;Todd Shields in Washington at tshields3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Matthew G. Miller at mmiller144@bloomberg.net, Ros Krasny, Steve Geimann
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