– The Washington Times – Thursday, September 15, 2016
California Democrats are testing the bounds of Obamacare’s “innovation” waiver, pushing to bypass the 2010 law’s ban on illegal immigrants’ participation by letting them purchase insurance on the state’s health care exchange.
Capitol Hill Democrats, who created the ban over fear that allowing illegals to enroll would be too politically charged, now sense a shift in their favor. They say it’s time to let those in the country without authorization buy into Obamacare as long as they cover all the costs themselves.
The California plan is poised to be the first major test for President Obama and his waiver authority. The White House is not tipping its hand, saying it will wait to see an official proposal.
Waivers were written into Section 1332 of the Affordable Care Act as a way to let states experiment on whether they could provide the same level of coverage without having to follow all of the law’s strict rules.
The waivers don’t take effect until next year because the law’s authors wanted to force states to play by the rules at first.
Vermont and Hawaii are the only states to submit waiver requests so far and have requested modest changes to how Obamacare’s small-business exchanges are implemented.
Other states see California as a test.
If California succeeds, “that may signal to some states, ‘Hey, there’s an openness here to thinking a little bit more broadly,’ and we may see then some states moving forward,” said Jennifer Tolbert, director of state health care reform at the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.
