Immigration Status Low-Income Health Insurance Coverage

Current law extends health insurance coverage to various people, including low-income pregnant and postpartum people and children in low-income families, whose immigration status would otherwise make them ineligible for coverage under state-federal programs or would limit the coverage's scope or duration. Other expansions make state-subsidized individual health insurance coverage available for certain people, regardless of immigration status. The bill modifies several provisions related to these coverage expansions by:

• Prohibiting the department of health care policy and financing (HCPF) from reimbursing a health-care provider, entity, or facility for providing medical services to a person who is not a lawful resident;
• Eliminating full health insurance coverage for pregnant and postpartum people who would be eligible for medicaid or the children's basic health plan if not for their immigration status;
• Eliminating full health insurance coverage for children who would be eligible for medicaid or the children's basic health plan if not for their immigration status;
• Repealing the state reproductive health-care program, the medical assistance program, and the state children's basic health plan (state-funded programs) that were established to provide expanded coverage;
• Halting outreach to and enrollment of eligible groups into new coverage options;
• Removing HCPF's potential to spend in excess of an authorized amount for the state-funded programs; and
• Excluding immigrants who are not lawfully residing in the state from state-subsidized individual health insurance coverage available through the health insurance affordability enterprise.
  (Note: This summary applies to this bill as introduced.)