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Statement of ACAP CEO Margaret A. Murray on Public Charge Rule
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 23, 2020
FOR MORE INFORMATION: Jeff Van Ness, (202) 204-7515; jvanness@communityplans.net
STATEMENT OF ACAP CEO MARGARET A. MURRAY
ON PUBLIC CHARGE RULE
WASHINGTON—ACAP Chief Executive Officer Margaret A. Murray today issued the following statement on the announcement that the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service would resume enforcement of the “public charge” rule, a regulation issued by the Department of Homeland Security which would allow the government to consider a wide range of public benefits an immigrant has already used or is likely to use when making decisions on his or her immigration status:
“Neither the passage of time nor the onset of a pandemic has made this bad idea any better.
“DHS itself has acknowledged that enforcement of the public charge rule will prevent people who are, by law, eligible from Medicaid from coming forward for coverage out of fear that they would be denied legal residency status.
“In a pandemic, however, this will exacerbate outbreaks of COVID where they occur, and leave it to safety net providers—community health centers, public hospitals, county health departments and others—to clean up the mess by forcing them to provide uncompensated care when someone who’s staying uninsured for the sake of a better shot at a green card gets sick.
“It doesn’t just cost money; this ill-considered regulation will needlessly put the lives of frontline safety-net workers at risk.”
About ACAP
ACAP represents 77 not-for-profit Safety Net Health Plans, which collectively serve more than 20 million people enrolled in Medicaid, Medicare, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and other public health programs. For more information, visit www.communityplans.net.
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