Refugees Are Getting Obamacare Subsidies While Your Premiums Skyrocket

There’s been a lot of talk about how many refugees we’re letting into our country; in fiscal year 2016 alone, the Obama administration let in 85,000 refugees into the United States. Almost half of them were Muslim refugees, according to Pew Research. In 2017, the plan is to let in at least 110,000 total refugees.

But, on top of the countless other concerns that come with refugees (assimilation, terrorism, taxpayer dollars, etc.), did you know that these refugees are also eligible for Obamacare?

Well, they are. You don’t need to be a citizen to be eligible to buy Obamacare through a marketplace exchange or to receive tax credits and subsidies. Rather, you just need to be “lawfully present.”

What does that mean? According to a recent Congressional Research Service report, the term “lawfully present” generally includes refugees and foreign nationals. But because the ambiguous term means different things to different government agencies, the Department of Health and Human Services had to create a program to determine which “lawfully present” people are eligible for the Affordable Care Act when the health care law took effect.

None of the information the federal government discovers in the course of determining a person’s eligibility is used in any immigration enforcement either. So if someone is illegally in the United States and applies for Obamacare, and the federal government then discovers their illegal status in the process, the government will take no action to deport that person.

Here’s where it gets downright unfair: A lawfully present noncitizen who isn’t eligible for Medicaid can be eligible for Obamacare tax credits and subsidies, while “[s]imilarly situated U.S. citizens and lawfully present noncitizen who are eligible for Medicaid could technically participate in an [Obamacare] exchange, but they would be ineligible for the premium credits and cost-sharing subsidies.”

This means that there are struggling citizens who may not get help with the ever-more expensive health care costs, but certain non-U.S. citizens — in a comparable financial situation — are getting extra help from the federal government to purchase Obamacare.

As Obamacare gets more and more expensive (premiums are shooting through the roof) and refugees come flooding into this country, it would be prudent for policymakers to close this unfair loophole. It’s not right that non-citizens are given preferential treatment, when so many struggling, tax-paying Americans are closed off from the same help.

While we don’t have any numbers yet on how many refugees are on Obamacare, we do know that some cities and states will be disproportionally affected. As The New York Times reported recently, Detroit, Chicago, San Diego, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Baltimore, New York, and Philadelphia, among other cities, have each received a few hundred Syrian refugees since 2012. Some smaller cities are also feeling the brunt of the Obama administration’s refugee policies. For example, Boise, Idaho, has accepted more refugees than Los Angeles and New York combined, according to the Times.

In addition to thousands and thousands of refugees becoming eligible for government health care, California recently became the first state to apply for a waiver from the federal government to allow illegal aliens to get ACA coverage. If the waiver is granted, nearly 400,000 illegal aliens in California would be covered through Obamacare — despite President Obama’s 2009 promise that illegal aliens would not be eligible.

Premiums are up, enrollment is down, thousands of refugees are being put on Obamacare, and Obama’s promise to keep illegal aliens off Obamacare looks like another broken promise.

In other words, we’re getting closer and closer to the cliff. (For more from the author of “Refugees Are Getting Obamacare Subsidies While Your Premiums Skyrocket” please click HERE)

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