The Democrats’ Gamble on Health Care for the Undocumented
theatlantic.com
The Democrats’ Gamble on Health Care for the Undocumented
Ronald Brownstein
19-23 minutes
Several 2020 candidates are proffering moral and policy arguments for providing coverage, but the politics of the move are another matter.
12:41 PM ET
Jeff Chiu / AP
Anxiety spiked among many centrist Democrats when all 10 presidential candidates at a recent debate raised their hand, as if pledging allegiance, to declare they would support providing health care to undocumented immigrants. The image, which drew instant ridicule from President Donald Trump on Twitter, seemed to encapsulate the primary’s larger lurch to the left during the early stages of the 2020 race, which has unnerved many moderates.
But opinion among the candidates on this polarizing question is actually much more divided than that moment suggested. And that division underscores a larger point: While the most left-leaning positions in the Democratic field have attracted the most attention in the race so far, it’s far from certain the party will pick a nominee who embodies them.
Led by Senator Bernie Sanders, nearly a half-dozen 2020 Democrats have embraced a clear position of offering full access to health-care benefits. Others, including former Vice President Joe Biden, the nominal front-runner, oppose full benefits, although that wasn’t apparent at the debate. The latter group would allow undocumented immigrants to purchase coverage through the exchanges established by the Affordable Care Act, but only with their own money. That approach would cover far fewer people, but also potentially create much less exposure to Republican counterattacks.
Read: Obamacare bars illegal immigrants—and sticks hospitals with the bill
“If we are saying that we can put them into the pools and they can buy on the exchange, I don’t think voters are going to flip out on that because there is no subsidy,” says Matt Bennett, the executive vice president for public affairs at Third Way, a leading organization of Democratic centrists. “But I think beyond that gets pretty dicey.”
This debate affects millions of people. The Kaiser Family Foundation, using Census data, has estimated that 47 percent of the country’s roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants are uninsured, compared with one-fourth of legally present immigrants and about one-tenth of American citizens. Similarly, the Urban Institute places the number of uninsured undocumented immigrants at nearly 4.9 million, or about one-sixth of the total population of uninsured people in America.
The case for expanding their health-care access rests on financial, public-health, and moral arguments. Supporters contend that it’s cheaper to provide access to medical care up front, rather than deal with health crises in emergency rooms; that allowing the undocumented to go untreated increases health risks for legal residents who come in contact with them; and that it is unjust to let people face health threats without care, regardless of their status. As Biden put it in a recent interview with CNN, “How do you say, ‘You're undocumented. I'm going to let you die, man’? What are you going to do?” The counterargument, meanwhile, is that it’s unfair to ask taxpayers to subsidize their care, and that covering the undocumented will act as a “magnet” to incentivize more immigration.
Emergency rooms must provide aid to all who need it. But polls have consistently found that most Americans resist offering public benefits to the undocumented beyond that. In a recent CNN survey, Americans by a solid 3-2 margin said “health insurance provided by the government” should not be available to immigrants here illegally. The idea faced resistance across a wide array of constituencies, including several that Democrats rely on: Just over half of college-educated white voters, half of young adults ages 18 to 34, and over two-fifths of non-whites said they opposed providing coverage for the undocumented. At the same time, three-fifths of voters who identified as Democrats or lean Democratic said they support the idea.
This mixed result leaves the 2020 candidates balancing competing political and policy considerations as they confront the question. In the process, they have reopened a debate that extends back to the consideration of the ACA during former President Barack Obama’s first year in office.
theatlantic.com
The Democrats’ Gamble on Health Care for the Undocumented
Ronald Brownstein
19-23 minutes
Several 2020 candidates are proffering moral and policy arguments for providing coverage, but the politics of the move are another matter.
12:41 PM ET
Jeff Chiu / AP
Anxiety spiked among many centrist Democrats when all 10 presidential candidates at a recent debate raised their hand, as if pledging allegiance, to declare they would support providing health care to undocumented immigrants. The image, which drew instant ridicule from President Donald Trump on Twitter, seemed to encapsulate the primary’s larger lurch to the left during the early stages of the 2020 race, which has unnerved many moderates.
But opinion among the candidates on this polarizing question is actually much more divided than that moment suggested. And that division underscores a larger point: While the most left-leaning positions in the Democratic field have attracted the most attention in the race so far, it’s far from certain the party will pick a nominee who embodies them.
Led by Senator Bernie Sanders, nearly a half-dozen 2020 Democrats have embraced a clear position of offering full access to health-care benefits. Others, including former Vice President Joe Biden, the nominal front-runner, oppose full benefits, although that wasn’t apparent at the debate. The latter group would allow undocumented immigrants to purchase coverage through the exchanges established by the Affordable Care Act, but only with their own money. That approach would cover far fewer people, but also potentially create much less exposure to Republican counterattacks.
Read: Obamacare bars illegal immigrants—and sticks hospitals with the bill
“If we are saying that we can put them into the pools and they can buy on the exchange, I don’t think voters are going to flip out on that because there is no subsidy,” says Matt Bennett, the executive vice president for public affairs at Third Way, a leading organization of Democratic centrists. “But I think beyond that gets pretty dicey.”
This debate affects millions of people. The Kaiser Family Foundation, using Census data, has estimated that 47 percent of the country’s roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants are uninsured, compared with one-fourth of legally present immigrants and about one-tenth of American citizens. Similarly, the Urban Institute places the number of uninsured undocumented immigrants at nearly 4.9 million, or about one-sixth of the total population of uninsured people in America.
The case for expanding their health-care access rests on financial, public-health, and moral arguments. Supporters contend that it’s cheaper to provide access to medical care up front, rather than deal with health crises in emergency rooms; that allowing the undocumented to go untreated increases health risks for legal residents who come in contact with them; and that it is unjust to let people face health threats without care, regardless of their status. As Biden put it in a recent interview with CNN, “How do you say, ‘You're undocumented. I'm going to let you die, man’? What are you going to do?” The counterargument, meanwhile, is that it’s unfair to ask taxpayers to subsidize their care, and that covering the undocumented will act as a “magnet” to incentivize more immigration.
Emergency rooms must provide aid to all who need it. But polls have consistently found that most Americans resist offering public benefits to the undocumented beyond that. In a recent CNN survey, Americans by a solid 3-2 margin said “health insurance provided by the government” should not be available to immigrants here illegally. The idea faced resistance across a wide array of constituencies, including several that Democrats rely on: Just over half of college-educated white voters, half of young adults ages 18 to 34, and over two-fifths of non-whites said they opposed providing coverage for the undocumented. At the same time, three-fifths of voters who identified as Democrats or lean Democratic said they support the idea.
This mixed result leaves the 2020 candidates balancing competing political and policy considerations as they confront the question. In the process, they have reopened a debate that extends back to the consideration of the ACA during former President Barack Obama’s first year in office.
