For months, María, 55, older caregiver in the County of Orange, had trouble not smiling.
He worries that if he opens his mouth too much, people see their teeth and their covered plate. Immigrant undocumented, Maria has no medical or dental insurance. When your teeth start to hurt, take pain relievers. Last summer, a dentist told him to repair the prosthesis would cost him $ 2,400. This is more than what can afford.
“It’s very expensive,” said Maria, who usually works 12 hours a day and out of bed to customers and helping them with hygiene, to take medication and with household chores. “I need money for my children, to rent, for transport, for food. Sometimes I have nothing for me.”
A defense organization of immigrant workers put Kff Health News with María. For fear of expulsion, he asked that only his first name in this article be used.
Maria is one of the 2.6 million immigrants living in California without legal status, according to estimates by the federal government.
The state had gradually searched these immigrants to its Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal.
But now, given the freezing of state inscriptions, the Californian residents of low income found in the undocumented country, as well as the community workers and the workers who help them, with the bustle of evaluating the advantages of progress with the requests of Medi-Cal in the face of the risks of being discovered and deported by the federal government.
The California legislature, which aims to close a planned budget deficit of $ 12 billion, approved a proposal from the Governor Democrat Gavin Newsom to end the registration in Medi-Cal in January 2026 for those over 19 without legal status. The legislators are defining the final details of the budget agreement before the new financial year is concluded.
Meanwhile, federal immigration raids, which seem to have affected at least one health clinic in the state, are already obliging some people to consult medical care, according to immigrants and health suppliers.
And it is expected that the recent news that officials of the Trump administration share data from the beneficiaries of Medicaid, including their immigration status, with the erosion of the immigration authorities even more confidence in the program.
Andrew Nixon, United States spokesperson Health and Human Services (HHS), said that the Agency, which oversees the Medicare and Medicaid service centers (CMS), had the legal power to share data and process the “unprecedented systemic negligence in the context of the Biden-Harris administration, which allowed immigrants without documents.
To further complicate the situation, the Trump administration has threatened to keep the funds of states that offer medical coverage to people without legal status.
Currently, around 1.6 million people residing in the country without documents are registered in Medi-Cal.
In 2016, California began to extend low -income people without legal status, starting with children, then gradually developing to young people, the elderly and, in January of this year, to people between 26 and 49 years old. The state medical care department, which supervises Medi-Cal, was associated with community health clinics to help record eligible people.
It is too early to determine the impact that the latest state and federal actions have on the registration figures, because the data is only available until March. However, many suppliers and defenders said they were providing for a negative effect on the registration of immigrants for fear.
Seciah Aquino is the executive director of Latin Coalition for a healthy California, who supports community health promoters, who help disseminate Medi-Cal expansion to undocumented adults. A little more than half of the beneficiaries of public medical insurance in California are Latin, against only 30% of the beneficiaries of Medicaid across the country.
Aquino said their coalition will ask promoters to inform data sharing risks so that community members can make informed decisions. “They take very seriously that the council they have given to a member of the community can now harm them,” he said.
Newsom condemned data exchange, describing it as “legally doubtful”, while the national senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, both Democrats, demanded that the National Security Department (DHS) destroys any common data.
The California Medical Services Department announced on June 13 that it asked for more information from the federal government. The agency said they sent monthly reports to the CMS with demographic and eligibility information, including the name and address, as required by law.
According to what has been informed, the data of the affiliates of Illinois Medicaid, the state of Washington and Washington, DC, DC, were also shared with the DHS DHS
Jamie Mocks, spokesperson for the Illinois Medical Medical and Family Services Department, the Medicaid State Agency, said the department was “deeply concerned” by the news and that the data was regularly transmitted to the CMS because of their protection.
In Sacramento, democratic legislators found themselves in the difficult situation of having to reduce health benefits for low -income residents with an unsatisfactory immigration status, including people without legal status, people with permanent residence (green or green card) for less than five years, and some others who are requesting legal status or status that protects them against exports.
In addition to supporting the registration freezing in Medi-Cal for immigrants over 19 who live in the country without documents, legislators have agreed to collect monthly premiums from all residents with unsatisfactory immigration status between 19 and 59 years. Newsom offered a monthly bonus of $ 100 from January 2027; States legislators thwarted one of the $ 30 in July 2027.
“What I listen to in the places is that people tell me that they will be very difficult to make these bonus payments, whether $ 100 or 30,” said Carlos Alarcón, analyst of health policies and public advantages of California Immigrant Policy Center, a defense group. “The reality is that most people already have limited budgets.”
The legislator rejected the proposal of a governor to prohibit immigrants with an unsatisfactory immigration status receiving long-term care in the residences of the elderly and home care through Medi-Cal, but accepted the elimination of the dental advantages of July 2026.
Medical care providers have said that without medical coverage, many immigrants will be forced to request emergency care, which is more expensive for taxpayers than preventive and primary care.
Sepideh Taghvaei, dental director of dental care of the County of Santa Cruz, witnessed this phenomenon in 2009, when the state reduced the dental benefits of Medi-Cal for adults. The patients arrived with a swollen face and unbearable pain, with conditions so advanced that they needed hospital treatment. “It’s not profitable,” he said.
Senator of the State Roger Niello, a republican and vice-president of the Senate budget committee, said that California should not finance Medi-Cal for people without legal status, in particular given the budgetary challenges of the State. He also expressed his concern about the possibility that the coverage of those who live in the undocumented country to encourage others to move to California.
“If we maintain these expenses for non-citizens, we will have to cut in other areas, and this will certainly affect citizens,” he said.
The Californians also change their minds. In a survey conducted in May by the public Policy Institute of California, 58% of adults opposed the advantage.
For Maria, changes in health policies have left him paralyzed. Since his arrival here five years ago, his priority has been to earn money to keep his three children, which he left with his parents in his country of origin, he said.
The woman did not know that she could be eligible for Medi-Cal before the start of this year and had not had time to fill out the documents. After a friend told her that the state could freeze the registration in January, she started to hurry to finish the registration process.
But he then learned that Medi-Cal data had been shared with the immigration authorities. “Disappointed and frightened,” he described his reaction.
Suddenly, registering for Medi-Cal does not seem a good idea, he said.
Phil Galewitz and Bram Sabable-Smith contributed to this article.
This story was produced by Kff Health Newspublishing California Healthlinean editorially independent service of California Health Care Foundation.
