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.
At least one conservative probably had a literal aneurism when they heard this.
One can hope.
Good.
One less to worry about.
Probably means Texas won’t be sending their refugees to California.
This headline is some absolute bullshit.
California already had health insurance for undocumented immigrants, as does Massachusetts. It’s just limited to emergency care and pregnancy care.
California is expanding their existing coverage to comprehensive health care including primary care, which is cheaper than letting medical conditions get so completely out of control that they require expensive and disabling emergency hospitalizations.
Well, that’s all what the article says, it just doesn’t fit in the headline. It does identify that the eligibility criteria are removed by specifying all.
I mean, it’s also just nice to keep people healthy as well. Medical care should not cost a thing.
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What a wonderful healthcare system the US has. Jeez.
That’s exactly what the article said
Didn’t California recently also pass a Public Option for healthcare, aiming for full coverage of Californians in general?
Great steps in the right direction.
No, CA does not have a public option… unless you consider things like Medicaid.
That said, many are pushing for single payer, and in October Newsom signed a bill that tries to resurrect the push for single payer.
and in October Newsom signed a bill that tries to resurrect the push for single payer.
I think this is the one I was thinking of. Thanks for the clarification, Tad Ghostal.
I mean, this amounts to that, since by definition, an undocumented immigrant has no documentation. So anyone in California now has access (assuming they didn’t already, I don’t know) to the state insurance plan by claiming to be an undocumented immigrant when they go to the doctor.
Great step for what? Mental healthcare in the state is horrible. Can’t care for its own citizens but here we are.
Speaking with some authority here as I am guardian of a mentally ill family member. California vs Texas both are equally shitty when it comes to dealing with crazy. Housing is part of the major problem and no one dare fucking tackle that.
Fuck Newsome soundbite cowboy ways.
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.
One small point: Undocumented immigrants absolutely do pay taxes. They pay sales taxes, gas taxes, and contribute billions annually in income taxes. It may be true that not all of them pay income taxes, but many of them do.
And not for nothin, but there are plenty of citizens who pay little or no taxes too. And if you’re worried about people not paying their fair share of taxes, it’s weird to focus on such an underprivileged group when our corporations and billionaires are almost the whole fuckin pie chart. It’s not even close.
“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.
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.
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.
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
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?
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.
No. If you become a resident when you’re over 30 you’re required to get private health insurance.
Ah, thanks. I remember reading something that public ones won’t accept you when you’re too old.
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?
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.
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.
I got a better idea. Why don’t we just have universal healthcare already and pay for it by raising taxes?
Why raise taxes? Universal Healthcare would cost less than 2/3 of what we currently spend anyway. We could lower taxes and implement it.
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.
You mean expand coverage to those who can afford it just because they’re citizens?
That’s not the purpose of the program.
California is trying to set up a single payer healthcare system. This is not a case of California calling it quits and not bothering to try to cover everyone.
Maybe since MNsure passed this year, California has a model to build off of for the next legislative session. It could certainly use improvements; I’ll be watching California and NY, since MNsure has a ton of room for improvement
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.
The correct thing to do is, California should expand Medicaid coverage for Texans. Obviously.
I actually like this idea. No better way to stick it to Texans than to insure the hell out of them and show them how shitty their state is.
Establish a private company called California Funded.
Develop high-speed affordable light rail connecting Houston, Austin, DFW, Waco, and San Antonio.
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.
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.
What makes you think Medi-Cal isn’t available for California citizens?
Experience. It’s very easy to lose medi-cal for making still not enough to afford rent.
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”
Well sure, but when the undocumented are working for cash, how the fuck are they supposed to enforce that?
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.
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.
California has a huge labor shortage. It is extraordinarily expensive to live near any major population center. Agriculture is a huge industry, but many service, hospitality industries, etc. still need and require people living near big areas where the average housing price is 500k+ (this is including 1-2 commute to achieve that price excluding our high gasoline costs)
Who the fuck can sustainably work at or near minimum wage with those costs, paying full taxes.
This is an attempt at a labor policy that keeps all tech people happy they get can go out to dinner on Tuesday night.
I think you are the only one who even got close to answering my question. Without just straight up attacking one point i made and then ignoring everything else i said.
This makes sense. And with how our gov revolves around work and corporate greed it would make even more then that California gov is trying to bolster its “low earners” economy.
Because a healthier population is a more able-working population. Great perspective
In Canada we have similar issues in they want to bring in immigrants (many on student visas) by 100s of thousands which in turn sees them blamed for the housing affordability crisis when they really are brought in to help prop up not only the universities with higher enrollment fees but also to prop up employers that want workers at minimum or lower wages. It’s an added bonus that they need to rent rooms from politician landlords.
There’s definitely an issue with the impending shortage of younger population to support the aging population which is also why they’re bringing immigrants in for, but it’s also maintaining artificially low wages that normal market conditions would not ever see filled unless wages were increased.
In the meantime like in the US there is this low wage economic class of non citizens abused for cheap labor.
Have the tried building more housing?
Where? We don’t own 2/3 of the land in the state. The Federal Government does, and we can’t build there. We’ve built as much as we can, given maximum height restrictions, and used up basically all available land already.
I lived in the Bay area and travel to California often for work. You are just wrong. First off there is plenty of room, secondly you people build single detached homes when you should be building subways with apartment buildings. Sure the fed owns a lot of your land but who cares? It isn’t in San Jose it is out in the freaken desert. Also freaken combine like things. It is so absurd how you randomly see fortune 100 companies next to houses.
Basically fly to the better coast and walk around Brooklyn. Take some pictures. Then show the people back home what you should be doing. This isn’t rocket science.
We have to change the laws to be able to build like that. You aren’t allowed to build taller than a certain height west of the 5. State and local maximum building heights do not allow us to build multiple use structures.
Sure there may be “plenty of room,” but it’s all owned, and zoned for single use structures. Believe me, I’m fighting to change that shit at the local level, but currently I couldn’t replace my house with a brownstone because it will never get permitted, as in the permits needed for construction.
Also the fed owns land in the cities as well as the deserts, mountains, and forests.
So you admit that this is a human caused problem
You can get subsidized insurance through https://coveredca.com/ or free Medi-cal.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
For us non-US readers; what’s the difference between health insurance and healthcare? For comparison, in Australia private health gives you a room, nice TV, edible food etc but you don’t get priority. When it comes to essential surgery or treatment you join the line with everyone else.
Health insurance is the system we use to pay for healthcare. Insurance is made available by your employer, you then pay premiums in order to buy and keep your insurance, and once you actually need healthcare, your insurance helps cover some of the costs of receiving care.
Everyone in the states needs health insurance, not because of how affordable it makes taking care of emergencies, but because, if you don’t have insurance, you have to pay the prices that the medical provider and insurance companies made up on how much procedures cost, so they can give each other a discount on those insane prices.
For instance, if you have insurance in the states and you go to the hospital for a nasty fall that maybe broke something. Nothing was broken, but they had to take x-rays. Well, you have to pay for the x-rays, and the time that the staff was needed for you. We’re going to pretend, for this case, that your insurance won’t deny coverage since it “wasn’t medically necessary”. So you’d get a bill between $200-$300.
But if you didn’t have insurance, or were denied coverage, you have to pay full price. But that price isn’t the price that anyone actually pays unless they’re in your predicament. You see, the provider and insurance had gotten together to determine how much would be paid for any given procedure, but they make the deal seem much better to their respective bosses by inflating the price of the procedure before negotiations, so that the insurance pays a “discount” that’s similar to the actual cost of the procedure. Which is great for them, but if you get treatment without insurance (or your insurance denies coverage) you have to pay the fake, inflated price that the provider said it cost before they negotiated the price back down to something reasonable with the insurance companies. So, to go back to my example above, those x-rays and some time with staff that didn’t lead anywhere will probably cost you more in the neighborhood of $2000-$3000 if you aren’t covered.
This has a double cooling effect. One, it forces more people to have health insurance out of fear of paying those stupidly insane prices. And two, it makes people avoid going to the doctor for minor issues for fear of being denied coverage since “it wasn’t medically necessary”. Great for profitability, terrible for humans.
Let’s not forget that the premium is usually taken from your paycheck, and can range from $15-$750/pay cycle depending on the insurance plan. In my case, I’m paying $450/month as the premium, plus $90/visit. The healthcare system doesn’t have an office near my home, so I travel an hour and a half to see the doctor, and it’s 45 minutes to the nearest hospital.
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For reference, I was in a car accident that broke both of my wrists and I had to go to the ER. I was fine other than my wrists.
The ER use for about… 3 hours? Was over $10,000. Because my health insurance refused coverage since it was in an auto accident.
Luckily my bodily injury coverage on my insurance paid.
Then I needed surgery and physical therapy. All of which were not covered by my health insurance.
The surgery was about $32,000. (Included the metal plates and screws/pins as well as the surgical room and recovery + surgeon and anesthesia).
All said and done total cost for having my wrists broken was about $70,000. None of which was covered by my health insurance and thank god my parents (I was still on their car insurance) paid for underinsured motorist coverage because the drunk that caused the accident didn’t have insurance. I didn’t go into debt ONLY because of that coverage.
They charged me $40 for 2 Tylenol they gave me in the ER while I waited for them to come set my wrists and give me the big girl pain killers. $18 for a pregnancy test too prior to surgery that I couldn’t refuse. Unreal.
The crazy thing is that now, with high deductible plans being the norm, having access to your insurer’s PRICES is now a significant part of the benefit.
For any not familiar with high deductible plans, essentially you pay the full cost of the first several thousand dollars you incur per year, before insurance starts to cover any of your costs. But you get to pay the insurance company’s rates instead of the fake retail price.
Emergency rooms are required to try and stabilize patients before they discharge them. These patients are billed after they leave the hospital, insured or not.
If I try to schedule a checkup or procedure, I need to give my insurance card first. Uninsured can pay for a flat fee upfront. If they can’t pay, they get no service.
With insurance, things get complicated. The facility will try to give you an estimated cost of the service. But it’s always a back and forth with 2 or 3 parties; the insurance, facility, and doctor network. If there is a disagreement between parties, you the patient get a bigger bill. Even when you payed for the procedure beforehand.
It’s even more fun when, for example, a scan is covered but the person reading the results is not. Or a surgeon and surgery is covered, but the anesthesiologist is not. Or your usual ob/gyn isn’t working when you go into labor at 2am on a Sunday.
Yea, I fucking hate bill balancing. We received a $10,000 bill for a neonatal consult a day after my son was born. He had a little fluid in his lungs, was gone in an hour or two.
The doctor was part of the hospital system but I guess that 2 miles he drove to the women’s center justifies a $10k bill. Our healthcare is broken.
It’s complicated and shitty, but people are treated the same for the most part, there’s no “fast pass” for having better insurance. Hospital and doctors offices are private. You can have private health issues, or if you qualify because you are poor or disabled you can get free health insurance from some states which then pays the hospital or doctor for your care. If you have your own private health insurance through a work group plan or you pay for yourself then you might have to pay a percentage of the total cost called a “copay” or you might have to pay the total cost until you have paid a yearly deductible and then you will only pay a percentage of the total cost until you reach an “out of pocket maximum” for the year which can range from a few thousand to ten thousand or more dollars.
Health insurance implies a middleman that is profit driven to get as much money as possible by denying fringe claims, healthcare is paid for by all and has your health as its driving force.
This is a good first step and the only real issue is that this doesn’t go quite far enough.
We need Medi-Cal for all in this state.
This is going to sound insane, but I can’t get rid of Medi-cal. I did need it during covid because my insurance was tied to work and I was living with some elderly folk. I kept it when I moved in with my (then) boyfriend because I was in an area where I struggled to find a job. But then we got married, and I have been on his insurance for more than a year. I’ve called (even spoken to a few people), and I’ve written letters, but they just keep renewing it. Most recently I tried calling again but I gave up after waiting for an hour.
I couldn’t even use it if it wanted to because my name is different now, but the fact that I can’t communicate with them to let them know that I don’t need it is frustrating
And that made me wonder. I can’t get through to them to tell them that I don’t need it, right? How the hell does someone who DOES need it get through to get some help?
Someone similar position to you, I needed to use Medicaid during the pandemic. I’ve told them twice, once over the phone, and I still seem to have an active thing.
The way I look at it though, this hopefully means more people have it than need it, versus the opposite where some can’t get it but need it.
And that made me wonder. I can’t get through to them to tell them that I don’t need it, right? How the hell does someone who DOES need it get through to get some help?
The answer is always that the money is being funneled to someone who doesn’t care if you need it or not
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My family doesn’t particularly support undocumented citizens. I’m on the fence about it. Yeah, they also pay taxes, work like normal people, and probably fled for better living conditions. I would like to hope they be more well supported given they were documented. Additionally, it isn’t fair to the people who waited many years and paid lots of money to get through the process legitimately. So yeah, I would like to see immigrants formally go through the process, but if they can’t wait and pay like others, then they probably have a good reason behind their choices.
That’s insane.
What’s insane is how California can provide medical care to illegal immigrants but red states can’t even provide it for their citizens.
Kind of put things into perspective where’s the better place to live. That’s why California is so expensive while places like Oklahoma are not.
Supply and demand, lol.
What’s insane about it? Undocumented immigrants deserve healthcare too, and we should all expect public healthcare in a general sense.
Dude confused “amazing” with “insane.”
This is just good cost saving. Everyone has healthcare in the US. It’s called the emergency room. It costs 100x what healtchare should and has terrible outcomes compared to early preventive treatment, and is a terrible experience for the patient to boot.
Getting any group of people on preventive care is just smart in general, regardless of who they are.
He’s one of those “people are more human if they come from my country” folks.
Probably thinks people are more human if they share his skin color, too.
One looks through their comment history says otherwise. It just easier to demonize someone you don’t agree with.
Also I agree with them. Just saying its ass backwards that an illegal immigrant has better healthcare than an actually citizen doesn’t automatically mean illegal immigrants should have no healthcare
It’s not better. Now they simply qualify for the same program every other California resident can have.
… as a Californian this is bullshit. Solve mental health and homelessness crisis. This is smoke and mirrors shit. Gavin is all about image and little on substance. This coming from a person who wouldn’t vote Republican either. We are literally in the darkest timeline. A turd sandwich versus a douche
Yeah “solve mental health” but no health insurance for those poors! Great idea!
Any other cliche TV quotes you want to throw out?
The point was we need to take care of citizens first and we haven’t even done that. That’s the first order of government. I guess one could argue that giving everyone people who are not here legally services are protecting the public. Anyway, I was trashed last night so sorry for the rant but I still feel that the government isn’t doing all its can for its citizens first.
I’m a caretaker for someone with schizophrenia and the mental health services and coverage available in this state is completely inadequate. So politicians go on stage and say things like we’re going to give everyone healthcare and it is all shit.
Yeah you didn’t say that the state isn’t doing all it can though. You said to solve mental health and homelessness before giving health care to people.
If the person you are a caretaker for was undocumented, would you withhold care? Should they get less care? Should they just get shipped back to where they came from? Or should they get the best possible care, regardless of immigration status, because they are a person in need?
good they get help but what about the people living here already that have been waiting
Medi-Cal is already available to all Californians that meet income requirements?
That would be Socialism
Which is good
“Undocumented”? “health insurance”?
“Undocumented health insurance”!?
“as long as they met eligibility requirements, including income limits and California residency in 2014.”
But not documented!?Are you quite sure you’re all right over there?
Think of undocumented as “The Gov’t does not have a officially documented reason for why they are currently in the country” and not “The Gov’t literally has no idea that this person exists.”
You’re misunderstanding jargon for a standard english word.
“Undocumented” in US immigration terms is not the same meaning as being “undocumented” in other contexts, i.e lacking any and all documents of a specific type.
You can be “undocumented” inimmigration terms and still have establishing documents like power bills that show Californian residency.
I think California also issues driver licenses regardless of immigration status, just ability to pass a driving test. That’s likely the most common document that will be used for eligibility.
i don’t understand who arethe documetns?
it’s all just papperwork, right?
who makes the linews?
i don’t understand who arethe documetns? it’s all just papperwork, right? who makes the linews?
You ok bud?
He made the linews
