LOS ANGELES — President-elect Donald Trump’s promise of mass deportations and tougher immigration restrictions is deepening mistrust of the health care system among California’s immigrants and clouding the future for providers serving the state’s most impoverished residents.
At the same time, immigrants living illegally in Southern California told KFF Health News they thought the economy would improve and their incomes might increase under Trump, and for some that outweighed concerns about health care.
Community health workers say fear of deportation is already affecting participation in Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program for low-income residents, which was expanded in phases to all immigrants regardless of residency status over the past several years. That could undercut the state’s progress in reducing the uninsured rate, which reached a record low of 6.4% last year.
Immigrants lacking legal residency have long worried that participation in government programs could make them targets, and Trump’s election has compounded those concerns, community advocates say.
The incoming Trump administration is also expected to target Medicaid with funding cuts and enrollment restrictions, which activists worry could threaten the Medi-Cal expansion and kneecap efforts to extend health insurance subsidies under Covered California to all immigrants.
Clinics and community health workers encourage immigrants to enroll for health coverage through Medi-Cal and Covered California. But workers have noticed that fear of deportation has chilled participation.(Vanessa G. Sánchez/KFF Health News)
“The fear alone has so many consequences to the health of our communities,” said Mar Velez, director of policy with the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California. “This is, as they say, not their first rodeo. They understand how the system works. I think this …