California Budget to Include Expanded Medi-Cal Coverage for Young Undocumented Immigrants

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Approximately 90,000 young undocumented immigrants may become eligible for state-provided health insurance coming January 2020.

The agreement was made Sunday expanding availability of Medicaid benefits to low-income adults regardless of their immigration status. To a regular household the $98 million price tag sounds steep, but it is only a small portion of the $213 billion budget. The expansion of benefits will be on the first budget that will be need to be signed by Governor Newsom, who was involved in coming to the budget agreement.

The benefits will allow undocumented immigrants up to 25-years-old to sign up for Medi-Cal benefits. The legislature, which is made up of mostly all democrats will be voting on the budget on June 15. In addition, there are negotiations to also offer Medi-Cal to those undocumented immigrants who are over 65-years-old.

In order to fund the expanded benefit, a portion will come from the penalties that will be imposed on those who do not carry health insurance. To assist more in accessing coverage, the state is providing premium subsidies in order to help the middle class beginning of 2020.