By Kenny Goldberg<\/span>
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

A legislative effort to allow people who are here illegally to buy Covered California<\/a> health plans has been shelved.<\/p>\n

State Sen. Ricardo Lara<\/a> (D-Bell Gardens) removed a section from his bill (Senate Bill 4<\/a>) that would have let those immigrants buy unsubsidized health insurance through California’s insurance exchange.<\/p>\n

An estimated 2.7 million<\/a> people are living n California illegally. As it stands now, hospital emergency rooms or community clinics are usually the only options when they get sick.<\/p>\n

The idea of extending Medi-Cal coverage to this population has been rejected as too expensive.<\/p>\n

Nadereh Pourat<\/a>, director of research of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, said it actually makes financial sense to provide coverage for the uninsured.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause you can prevent conditions from getting worse. You can address them early by paying for care in a lower-cost setting,” she said.<\/p>\n

Beginning next May, California will expand Medi-Cal coverage to the children of people who are living here illegally.<\/p>\n

Approximately 170,000 immigrant children will be eligible for the program next year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kenny Goldberg A legislative effort to allow people who are here illegally to buy Covered California health plans has been shelved. State Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) removed a section from his bill (Senate Bill 4) that would have let those immigrants buy unsubsidized health insurance through California’s insurance exchange. An estimated 2.7 million […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,159,4],"tags":[1140,349,1215,2102,171,137,1271,643],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-12896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-health","category-news","tag-aca","tag-affordable-care-act","tag-covered-california","tag-health","tag-health-reform","tag-immigration","tag-obamacare","tag-undocumented-immigrants"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n