As a practicing physician for more than 20 years and the son of two immigrant parents, patients often ask me whether applying for Medi-Cal health care coverage will affect their ability to stay in this country.
Medi-Cal has expanded to include every low-income California resident regardless of immigration status. When my patients ask me if they should apply for Medi-Cal, I can now assure them it is safe.
Years of xenophobic rhetoric and anti-immigrant policies have fostered deeply entrenched fears and widespread misinformation that keep immigrants from accessing critical resources.
We need a proactive, collaborative approach to begin healing the harm caused by the Trump administration’s public charge rule. From community organizations to state agencies, we must provide clear guidance to families and tackle fear with facts.
The new “public charge” rule is a cruel policy, and it threatens to harm the broader community. Health care costs will certainly rise for everyone if people drop off Medicaid rolls. Some will forgo vaccinations, which has the potential of creating outbreaks of preventable diseases.
Almost 140,000 Latino children in California aren’t covered by health insurance, even though they’re eligible to enroll in Medi-Cal, the state’s safety-net health care program. Three quarters of the state’s uninsured Latino children ages 18 and under are missing out on health coverage, analysts at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research found.
Soon after news broke last week of the Trump administration’s finalized “public charge” rule, benefit enrollers at the Eisner Health community clinic in downtown Los Angeles started getting phone calls.
As rumors swirl in Los Angeles communities about proposed changes to federal immigration policy on who is considered a “public charge,” medical and legal aid providers are countering misinformation they say is putting immigrants’ health at risk.