This policy brief provides the answer. One interesting finding is how the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) individual mandate may put a bind on poor, legal immigrants.
“Legal immigrants with less than five years of legal permanent residency will face the same requirement as native born U.S. citizens to have health insurance coverage. However, legal immigrants are subject to a “five-year bar” that makes them ineligible for federal health insurance programs like Medicaid.”
I have also replicated two charts from the paper. The first shows how children’s eligibility for public health insurance programs will change with ACA. The second calculates the maximum financial exposure for families after purchasing individual policies through the health insurance exchange.
- Christian D. Phillips “Gains, Gaps and New Choices: The Impact of the Affordable Care Act in California” Advancing National Health Reform, Policy Brief from the Berkeley Center on Health, Economic & Family Security, August 2010.