Latinos are major stakeholders in the core issues in President Obama’s domestic policy agenda: health care and immigration reform. Access to health care for undocumented immigrants was one of the more divisive elements of the health care reform debates leading up to the final version of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that became law in 2010. To be clear, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) excludes undocumented immigrants from participating in any state exchanges. The political tension surrounding the issue has taken a new twist in the context of comprehensive immigration reform (CIR). Most visibly, Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) attributed his departure from the bi-partisan House “gang of eight” due to his concerns that CIR would make undocumented immigrants eligible for tax payer supported coverage under the ACA.
The question driving this debate is essentially this: how much access to tax-payer subsidized care should immigrants who were undocumented when the ACA became law receive? While this question is divisive among members of Congress, it is far from controversial within the Latino community, where there is consistent support to allow undocumented immigrants access to the ACA and state exchanges. Thus, members of Congress considering voting for CIR need not fear backlash from Latino voters in response to increasing immigrant access to the ACA.
In a recent post in this space, we noted our findings in Colorado, where only 25% of Latinos in the state knew the ACA bars undocumented immigrants from the program benefits and exchanges (half mistakenly thought eligibility extended to the unauthorized population). The misconceptions may reflect the policy preferences Colorado Latinos hold on the matter. A clear majority (62%, illustrated below) believe undocumented immigrants should be able to access benefits through the ACA.
If we broaden the scope to consider the national context, the results are even more robust. We asked the identical question in a national survey in April of this year (see below), and find 81% of Latinos in the United States believe that undocumented immigrants should be able to access benefits through the ACA. This sentiment is strong across virtually all sub-samples of the Latino population, with even 60% of Latino Republicans believing undocumented immigrants should be able to access benefits through the ACA.
These results are perfectly consisting with all of our prior research on Latino voter support for undocumented immigrants, health care reform, and the combination of the two. In 2009, prior to the ACA being enacted, we found two-out-of-three Latino voters, fully 67%, believe anyone living in the United States should be eligible to purchase or receive health care regardless of citizenship status.
When Congress returns to session next month, they are likely to focus immigration policy debate on the controversies and implications of offering a pathway to legal status (of any sort) and ACA eligibility. For Latino voters, there is nothing controversial about either; their strong support for a pathway to citizenship, and access to health coverage has not wavered.
Gabriel R. Sanchez is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of New Mexico, Interim Director of the RWJF Center for Health Policy at UNM and Research Director for Latino Decisions. Professor Sanchez has published multiple articles on Latino health care attitudes.
