title: The impact of health care reform on California's children in immigrant families.
abstract: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) restricts its health insurance expansions in ways that exclude many uninsured children in California who are immigrants or have immigrant parents. These exclusions directly limit coverage options for noncitizen children. And immigrant parents, potentially misinterpreting eligibility requirements for these new programs, may not enroll their citizen children. Using the 2007 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS 2007), this policy brief estimates that of the 1.08 million children in California who were uninsured all or part of the year, between 180,000 to 220,000 will be excluded from the health care reform expansions due to the combined direct and potential indirect effects of these exclusions. This "left-out" group comprises between 17% and 20% of all uninsured children in California. In light of these exclusions, California's community clinics and public hospitals could continue to serve a significant number of uninsured immigrant children even after full implementation of ACA.
authors.affiliation: UCLA School of Public Health, Department of Health Services, and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, USA.
authors.forename: Ninez
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ponce
authors.forename: Shana Alex
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Lavarreda
authors.forename: Livier
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cabezas
mesh_terms: D002140:California; D002648:Child; D003153:Community Health Services / Q000191:economics; D004608:Eligibility Determination / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D054242:Emigrants and Immigrants / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005191:Family Characteristics; D018166:Health Care Reform / Q000191:economics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D019458:Insurance Coverage / Q000191:economics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D007348:Insurance, Health / Q000191:economics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D017057:Medically Uninsured / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D058991:Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D011203:Poverty / Q000191:economics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D014481:United States