Historic #Health4All win celebrated by health and immigrant rights advocates, lawmakers, and community members in Sacramento
Health and immigrant rights advocates, community members and state legislators celebrated Wednesday morning in Sacramento the historic measure to include full scope Medi-Cal access to all Californians, regardless of immigration status, in the state budget.
“It has been a movement that will improve the lives of Californians,” said Assemblymember Joaquín Arámbula, D-Fresno, at the steps of the Capitol building.
Arámbula was joined by assembly Speaker Anthony Rendón, state Sen. María Elena Durazo, D-Los Ángeles, civil rights and labor leader Dolores Huerta, and other leaders for health and immigration organizations that have championed to expand health access to income eligible adults ages 26 to 49 regardless of immigration status.
“It is time for us to end the unjust exclusion that too many of our immigrant communities have felt for too long. The struggle is real, and we saw the results that bore out during this pandemic,” Arámbula said. “And this is the appropriate response for us to take as a state, to make sure that we are investing into the very communities who were impacted during the pandemic will be how we can rise out of this pandemic and be stronger.”
It will benefit more than 700,000 undocumented Californians ages 26-49, starting no later than Jan. 1, 2024.
“This will represent the biggest expansion of coverage in the nation since the start of the affordable care act in 2014 and it will be a benefit not just for the health and economic security of those individuals but of their families and commands as well,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, the statewide health care consumer advocacy coalition.
In 2016, the #Health4All coalition, consisting of over 180 state and national organizations committed to health and racial justice, won full-scope Medi-Cal for all low-income children, regardless of immigration status.
Then the coalition advocacy led to removing Medi-Cal exclusions for undocumented young adults ages 19-25 in 2020. And in May of 2022, California began opening Medi-Cal to all income-eligible adults ages 50 and older.
“You can’t have a California for All unless we have health for all, you can’t have a California for all unless all Californians regardless of immigration status, regardless of income level, unless all Californians have the health care that they need,” said Rendón. “That is what we seek to provide in this state, that is what we are going to provide in this state, that is a moral imperative, a moral imperative for this state and I am so proud to be here to work with these folks, to work with all of these groups, to make sure that all of our families are provided for.”
For those who are yet to be eligible, they can enroll in “restricted-scope” Medi-Cal, and be moved automatically to comprehensive coverage when coverage for 26-49-year-old group begins in 2024.
Huerta said this milestone is very important because “hundreds of thousands of people who are undocumented in California are going to have health care.”
Huerta said many undocumented people go to emergency rooms which is so much more expensive for the state and counties who have to pay for that.
“In this way, we will have a program where they can be taken care of and be safe and healthy,” Huerta said.
“I am grateful to all who have helped us to advance this movement and have gotten us this far,” Arámbula said, who also recognized the leadership of Gov. Gavin Newsom to invest in a ‘California for All’. “A California where we recognize the importance of delivering on healthcare as a human right and making sure that every one of our community members can have that access.”
The coalition urges everyone who is eligible now to enroll in coverage through Medi-Cal.
María G. Ortiz-Briones: 559-441-6782, @TuValleTuSalud
Esta historia fue publicada originalmente el 30 de junio de 2022, 10:40 a. m. with the headline "Historic #Health4All win celebrated by health and immigrant rights advocates, lawmakers, and community members in Sacramento."
