Protecting the Health of Our Nation's Essential Workers: Congress Must Lift the 'Five-Year Bar' on Medicaid and CHIP   [open pdf - 0B]

From the Document: "As Congress continues to address the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic, it is critical that they take immediate action to address a longstanding, unnecessary gap in health coverage by lifting the five-year bar that blocks lawfully present immigrant families from accessing insurance through Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). [...] Twenty-five years ago, Congress passed legislation that created an arbitrary and dangerous five-year exclusion period and additional restrictions that prevented lawfully present immigrants from accessing health insurance programs as part of a 'welfare reform' effort. Today, the five-year bar prevents hundreds of thousands of people who are lawfully living, working, and paying taxes in the United States from accessing medical care and other basic needs. The hard-learned lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic have shown us the dangers of arbitrary policies that block access to basic medical care."