Are unauthorized immigrants eligible for federal Medicaid coverage?

Unauthorized immigrants are not eligible for traditional, federally funded Medicaid, which helps cover medical costs for low-income people.

They have never been eligible. A 1996 welfare reform law signed by Democratic President Bill Clinton also requires most authorized immigrants to wait five years for eligiblity.

Fourteen states, excluding Wisconsin, use state Medicaid funds to cover unauthorized immigrants. 

President Donald Trump has proposed reducing federal Medicaid funds to those states. That would cause 1.4 million people to lose coverage, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated. 

Medicaid costs nearly $900 billion annually, two-thirds from the federal government and one-third from the states.

In Wisconsin, Medicaid serves 1.28 million people, more than a third of them children. Among adults, 45% work full time, 28% part time. The annual cost is $12.1 billion, $4.2 billion of it in state spending.

While unauthorized immigrants can’t get Medicaid in Wisconsin, they can apply to receive emergency care covered by state Medicaid.