Half of the illegal immigrants living in California are poor enough to qualify for the state's health care program should lawmakers decided to enact legislation expanding the coverage to undocumented aliens, according to a new report.
The study, conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), comes as some California lawmakers push to open the state's Medicare health program, dubbed Medi-Cal, to illegal immigrants, who are not allowed to sign up for insurance under Obamacare.
PPIC estimated how many illegal immigrants in California would be eligible to sign up for the $91-billion Medi-Cal program.
The analysis found that as much as 60 percent of the 3 million undocumented immigrants living in the nation's largest state do not currently have insurance. Fifty-one percent of the total illegal immigrant population are considered impoverished, making so little money that they would qualify for Medi-Cal, according to Reuters.
To qualify for Medi-Cal, a single person must have an annual income of less than $16,243, while a couple must make less than $21,984.
The report found that most poor undocumented families live in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley. In Los Angeles County alone, nearly half a million people would be eligible for Medi-Cal, according to the report.
Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law last month that will provide health care to children in the country illegally, a plan that is expected to begin next year and cost $40 million, rising to $132 million annually over time, according to San Jose Mercury News.
But a plan to give illegal adult immigrants access to Medi-Cal was dropped after the state estimated it would cost more than $1 billion. The original sponsor of the proposal, Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, said that he plans to push forward the legislation to provide Medi-Cal benefits to impoverished immigrants, a plan that would also allow illegals with higher incomes to buy insurance through the state's Obamacare exchange, reported The Los Angeles Times.
The PPIC report examines the feasibility of Lara's proposal, noting that it could save money in the long run.
Because illegal immigrants lack sufficient health care access, they often wait until they are extremely sick before seeking help and then end up going to the emergency room, where it costs more to treat them than it would if they had received preventive care.
"The undocumented rely largely on safety net service providers when they need it. Community clinics and hospital emergency departments are their main access to organized healthcare," said Shannon McConville, a co-author of the report, according to Reuters.
The PPIC said that readily available health care correlates to lower mortality rates, increased employment and better education.
Read the full report here.
