Thursday, February 12, 2015

Illegal Immigrants Lose Obamacare Coverage

Just in case you have been following the Obamacare scorecard of who is losing and gaining coverage,
you might have missed this tidbit.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Wednesday that the 200,000 people will be dropped from plans at the end of February. They are in addition to the 112,000 who lost coverage late last year.
"These are individuals who have gone through the process of attempting to confirm their citizenship or immigration status for their 2014 coverage and (despite) repeated outreach we've not received that documentation," said Andy Slavitt, CMS' principal deputy administrator. "So our requirements of enforcing the law will require us to remove these people from our coverage." - USA Today

Did you catch that?

Some 200,000 immigrants got Obamacare health insurance (presumably with taxpayer subsidies) but now are losing it because they can't prove they are here legally.

My question is, why were they given coverage to begin with? Aren't LEGAL residents already in the system somewhere? Employers are required to verify legal resident status or face fines, but the folks who hand out Obamacare like they were Obamaphones apparently aren't subject to the same standards.
Immigrant advocates, who have had some of the biggest successes in enrollment on the federal health care exchange, said it was unfair. 
Yes it is unfair.

If you don't qualify you should not receive the coverage from the start.
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