Thousands of undocumented immigrants live in Maryland and many of them do not have health insurance that covers regular health check ups and other needs. Some members of the House of Delegates are renewing an effort to allow Maryland’s undocumented population to buy private health insurance through the state’s insurance market place.
The legislation, which does not have a bill number yet, is referred to as the Access to Care Act and is similar to a bill from the 2023 session that passed in the House of Delegates but stalled in the Senate.
It would prompt the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, the state’s insurance marketplace created as a result of the national the Affordable Care Act, to file a federal waiver to permit undocumented Marylanders to buy and use individual health care plans.
Currently, federal laws say that undocumented residents are “not eligible to enroll in federally funded coverage… or to purchase coverage through the ACA (Affordable Care Act) Marketplaces,” according to KFF, a nonprofit health policy research and polling organization.