Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Different Takes: Public Charge Ploy Is Just Another Attempt To Close The Borders; Why Put Public Health Benefits, Safety Net On The Line For Everyone?
The Wall Street Journal: The ‘Public-Charge’ Ploy
President Trump in his better moments has said he wants, and the U.S. needs, more legal immigrants. But that’s hard to square with the way his Administration is now trying to curtail legal immigration under the pretext of preventing America from becoming a welfare magnet. The Department of Homeland Security on Monday finalized a rule that ostensibly seeks to enforce and clarify the Immigration and Nationality Act. That law bars immigrants from gaining admission, renewing visas or obtaining green cards if they are “likely at any time to become a public charge.” (8/13)
The Washington Post: How President Trump’s New Immigration Rule Could Erode The Social Safety Net
What is different about this most recent interpretation of a very old immigration law however, is not just that it enacts a wealth test on potential migrants, but that it does so by placing benefits and support services widely considered critical to public health and human dignity on the line. In closely tying the mere potential for public dependence to moral failure, the Trump administration attacks not only immigrants, but the very legitimacy of the social safety net. (Salonee Bhaman, 8/14)
The CT Mirror: Make Healthcare Accessible, Not A Hurdle For Immigrants
Barriers to accessing health insurance will increase uninsured rates and worsen health outcomes for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants and 22 million noncitizens residing in the United States. While the Affordable Care Act (ACA) expanded coverage to millions of Americans, it left intact the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PROWRA), which excluded undocumented immigrants from government-funded insurance including Medicaid, Medicare, and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)). The cost of uninsurance, in both economic and health terms, is immeasurable. (Grace Jin and Howard Forman, 8/14)
