Sec. 2. Findings; purpose
374 words·~2 min read·
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Congress finds as follows: Health insurance coverage reduces harmful disparities by alleviating cost barriers to and increasing utilization of necessary health care services, especially among low-income and underserved populations, including women. Based solely on their immigration status, many immigrants and their families face legal and policy restrictions on their ability to obtain affordable health insurance coverage through Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the health insurance exchanges.
Lack of health insurance coverage contributes to persistent disparities in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of negative health outcomes experienced by immigrants and their families. Nearly half of immigrant women are of reproductive age. Immigrant women are also disproportionately living in low-income households and lacking health insurance coverage. Legal and policy barriers to affordable health insurance coverage therefore particularly exacerbate their risk of negative sexual, reproductive, and maternal health outcomes, with lasting health and economic consequences for immigrant women, their families, and society as a whole.
Denying health insurance coverage or imposing waiting periods for health insurance coverage unfairly hinders the ability of immigrants to attain good health and undermines the economic well-being of their families. The population of immigrant families in the United States is expected to continue to grow. One in seven United States residents is foreign-born, and approximately one in four children in the United States has at least one immigrant parent. It is therefore in the Nation’s shared public health and economic interest to remove legal and policy barriers to affordable health insurance coverage based on immigration status.
Although Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
(DACA)recipients are authorized to live and work in the United States, they have been unfairly excluded from the definition of lawfully present and lawfully residing for purposes of health insurance coverage through the Department of Health and Human Services, including Medicaid and CHIP, and the health insurance exchanges. Immigration law is constantly evolving and new immigration categories for individuals with federally authorized presence in the United States may be created. It is the purpose of this Act to— ensure that all individuals who are lawfully present in the United States are eligible for all federally funded health care programs; and advance the ability of undocumented individuals to obtain health insurance coverage through the health insurance exchanges.