Expanding ‘Obamacare’ to Illegal Immigrants Would Cost Billions: Federal Agency

The federal government recently said it would expand access to health care for some illegal immigrants.

President Joe Biden speaks in Washington on April 10, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Enabling illegal immigrants enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to receive health care under the Affordable Care Act will cost at least $7 billion a year, a federal agency said on June 24.

The Congressional Budget Office, with help from the Joint Committee on Taxation, crunched the numbers at the request of two members of Congress, after the federal government announced in May that it would let DACA recipients receive health coverage under the act, more commonly known as Obamacare.

The analysts projected that, on average, about 110,000 DACA recipients would enroll to receive health care because of the new rule. If that holds, then it will cost taxpayers $7 billion per year from 2025 through 2034, according to the analysts’ calculations.

“The costs from additional marketplace enrollment are offset slightly in the agencies’ estimates by decreases in emergency Medicaid spending as people become eligible to claim the credit,” the budget office said in a letter to Reps. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) and Jason Smith (R-Mo.), the members who requested the estimate.

Illegal immigrants who are brought to the United States at a young age are eligible for DACA, which, like Obamacare, was created while President Barack Obama was in office. While in the DACA program, illegal immigrants are shielded from deportation. Some 528,300 immigrants were active in the DACA program as of March 31, according to the government.

Illegal immigrants usually cannot receive federal health care coverage, and the Affordable Care Act states that only noncitizens who are “lawfully present” can enroll in coverage. But the new rule from the Department of Health and Human Services makes DACA recipients eligible starting on Nov. 1 for the health insurance marketplace and basic health programs by stating that the recipients are lawfully present for insurance purposes.

The Biden administration previously said it estimated that 100,000 previously uninsured immigrants would receive coverage under the rule.

If a related tax credit that is currently temporary is made permanent, the Congressional Budget Office said, then it estimates that about 140,000 DACA recipients will receive health care coverage on average per year. That would take the cost from $7 billion to $9 billion per year from 2024 through 2035. And paying for debt services for the illegal immigrants would cost an additional $2 billion, the analysts said.

The office also said that permanently expanding subsidies for Obamacare would cost $383 billion over the next decade and go to many wealthy individuals.

“At a time when we are experiencing a record $35 trillion national debt, with health care expenditures accounting for nearly 18 percent of GDP, it is unconscionable that Democrats would continue to push for massive taxpayer-funded handouts to the wealthy and large health insurance companies,” Mr. Arrington, chairman of the House Budget Committee, and Mr. Smith, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a joint statement.