42 Percent of New Medicaid Recipients in the Last Two Years Were Immigrants

Almost half of the low-income Americans who have enrolled in Medicaid in the past two years are immigrants to the United States, according to a new report, suggesting that Obamacare’s large expansion in the program will disproportionately benefit immigrants as well.
“The data show that immigrants and their children accounted for 42 percent of the growth in Medicaid enrollment from 2011 to 2013,” the CIS report says.
Because immigrants are more likely to have low incomes or lack insurance from their jobs, they’re much more likely to be eligible for the existing Medicaid program and Obamacare’s expansion of it. The report looks specifically at Medicaid growth right up until the program’s dramatic expansion. This year, the health-care law expanded eligibility for the program, in most states, to any adults and their dependents with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line, boosting federal spending on the program by tens of billions of dollars per year. Much of the benefits of the expansion, the CIS report points out, will then flow to low-income immigrants.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/392583/study-42-percent-new-medicaid-recipients-last-two-years-were-immigrants-patrick