UCLA public health officials highlighted a report Monday finding that up to 1 million Latino Californians could disenroll from Medi-Cal because of immigration-related fears under new federal and state policies, including as many as 380,000 U.S.-citizen children.
The report by the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute examined how changes under H.R. 1, a new federal public-charge rule and California restrictions on Medi-Cal enrollment could affect low-income Latino families receiving Medi-Cal and CalFresh benefits.
Researchers said the policies create three overlapping potential paths to losing benefits: direct exclusion under new rules, procedural loss involving reporting or renewal requirements, and withdrawal from public programs because of perceived immigration consequences.
Under the report’s “chilling-effect” scenarios, between 350,000 and 1 million Latino Medi-Cal enrollees living in households with at least one noncitizen could disenroll due to concerns about public-charge consequences.
The analysis also found that between 172,000 and 517,000 Latinos living in households receiving CalFresh could lose food assistance under those scenarios.
“Eligibility rules may apply to individuals, but the consequences extend across entire households,” said Dr. Arturo Vargas Bustamante, a UCLA Fielding School of Public Health professor and a co-author of the report. “When fear or confusion causes a parent to avoid renewing benefits, children can lose access to health coverage or food assistance even when they are U.S. citizens and remain eligible.”
The report estimated that between 127,000 and 380,000 Latino U.S.-citizen children could lose Medi-Cal benefits because of the chilling effect. Between 58,000 and 175,000 Latino U.S.-citizen children in households receiving CalFresh could be affected by the loss of food assistance, according to the analysis.
The researchers also found that about 30% of Latino adults potentially subject to new community-engagement requirements could be at risk of losing Medi-Cal coverage because they do not work at least 80 hours per month and are not enrolled in school.
More than one-third of Latino adults living in CalFresh households who could be subject to work requirements may be at risk of losing benefits because they do not meet the 80-hour monthly work threshold, according to the report.
The researchers cautioned that their work-requirement estimates do not account for all qualifying activities or exemptions and should not be interpreted as the number of people who ultimately will lose benefits.
“Families are not confronting these policy changes one at a time,” said Rosario Majano, a UCLA Fielding alumna and research analyst at the policy institute who co-authored the brief.
“This new policy environment makes it much harder for families to understand whether they remain eligible and safe to access the assistance they need,” she added.