When open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, begins nationwide this week, a group that had previously been barred from signing up will be eligible for the first time: “Dreamers.” That is the name given to children brought to the United States without immigration documents and who have since qualified for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Under a Biden administration rule that has become controversial in some states, DACA recipients will be able to enroll and, if their income qualifies, receive premium subsidies for Obamacare coverage. The government estimates that about 100,000 previously uninsured people among the half-million DACA recipients could enroll starting Nov. 1, which is the start date of the enrollment season in every state except Idaho.
However, the government’s fate remains uncertain. Kansas and 18 other states, including several in the South and Midwest, as well as Montana, New Hampshire and North Dakota, are challenging the measure in federal court.
Separately, 19 states and the District of Columbia filed a brief in support of the Biden administration’s rule. Led by New Jersey, those states include many on the East and West coasts, including California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Washington.
The rule, finalized in May, clarifies that those who qualify for DACA will be considered “lawfully present” for purposes of enrolling in plans under the ACA, which are open to U.S. citizens and lawfully present immigrants.
“The rule change is super important as it corrects a long-standing and erroneous exclusion of DACA recipients from ACA coverage,” said Nicholas Espíritu, deputy legal director at the National Immigration Law Center, which has also filed briefs in support for the government. ruler.
President Barack Obama established DACA in June 2012 through executive action to protect from deportation and provide work authorization to some unauthorized residents brought to the U.S. as children by their families if they met certain requirements, including that they arrived before June 2007 and had completed high school. , attended school or was a veteran.
States challenging the ACA rule say it will cause administrative and resource burdens as more people enroll, and will encourage more people to remain in the U.S. when they do not have permanent legal authorization. The lawsuit, filed in August in the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota, seeks to postpone the rule’s effective date and overturn it, saying that expanding the definition of “lawfully present” by the Biden administration violates the law.
On October 15, U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor, appointed in 2019 by then-President Donald Trump, heard arguments in the case.
The plaintiff states are pushing for quick action, and a ruling may be reached in the days before open enrollment begins nationwide in November, said Zachary Baron, a legal expert at Georgetown Law who is helping to manage the O’Neill Institute Health Care Litigation Tracker. .
But the outlook is complicated.
To begin with, in a legal battle like this, those who bring a case must demonstrate the harm that is alleged, such as the additional costs that the rule will force states to absorb. There are only about 128 DACA recipients in North Dakota, where the case is pending, and it is likely that not all of them will enroll in ACA insurance.
Additionally, North Dakota is not among the states that have its own enrollment marketplace. It relies on the federal Healthcare.gov site, making the legal burden more difficult to comply with.
“Even though North Dakota doesn’t pay money to purchase ACA health care, they still claim that they are somehow harmed,” said Espíritu, at the Immigration Law Center, which represents several DACA recipients and CASA, a group of nonprofit immigrant advocacy. , by opposing state efforts to repeal the rule.
During the hearing, Traynor focused on this issue, noting that a state that ran its own marketplace might be a better venue for such a case. He ordered the defendants to submit more information by Oct. 29 and for North Dakota to respond by Nov. 12.
On Monday, the judge denied a motion from the federal government asking him to reconsider his order requiring him to provide the state with the names of 128 DACA recipients living there, under seal, in order to help calculate any financial costs associated with his presence.
Additionally, it is possible that the case could be transferred to another district court, but that could cause delays in the decision, attorneys following the case said.
The judge could also go in several directions in his decision. It could postpone the rule’s effective date, as requested in part of the lawsuit, preventing DACA recipients from enrolling in Obamacare while the case is decided. Or you could leave the effective date as is while the case moves forward.
With any ruling, the judge could decide to apply the ruling nationwide or limit it only to states that challenged the government’s rule, Baron said.
“The approach taken by different judges has varied,” Baron said. “There has been a practice of striking down some regulatory provisions across the country, but many judges, including those on the Supreme Court, have also expressed concern that individual judges could affect policy in this way.”
Even as the case progresses, Espíritu said his organization is encouraging DACA recipients to sign up once the enrollment period begins nationwide in November.
“It’s important to sign up as soon as possible,” he said, adding that organizations like his will continue to monitor the case and give updates if the situation changes. “We know that gaining access to good, affordable health care can transform people’s lives.”
This case challenging the rule is completely independent of another case, brought by some of the same states that oppose the ACA rule, which seeks to completely end the DACA program. That case is currently in the appeals process in federal court.
