New Healthcare Requirements for US Immigrants

[geowrian 22,337]

36 minutes ago, vkrishn said:

Point being that on one end you term the parent as an immediate relative but they aren't provided the same benefits as a spouse or child and in that case the petitioner needs to take care of them. 

I have to agree with the others - you're conflating government classification of a visa class with insurance in a private marketplace.

If they choose to work, they can get coverage from their employer fine.

If they can get added to somebody else's plan, great. That is a private affair, though.

The point is somebody other than the taxpayers need to take care of them, unless the taxpayers vote in people to change that. The cost of medical care is very expensive, especially for the elderly.

 

Or maybe a single payer system will be implemented eventually, which would cover anybody. Who knows. That's for the voters to decide. But it's not there today.

[vkrishn 97]

42 minutes ago, Boiler said:

If you can get your Parents added great, like I said it is unusual, but not completely unknown.

Most of the employer sponsored ones in the US don't allow to add parents but they do allow add ones spouse and child. 

[vkrishn 97]

40 minutes ago, Jorgedig said:

Best to take that up with insurance companies.  It has nothing to do with the federal government.

It does in the way parent is included as part of immigration ruling when convenient. 

[Boiler 45,744]

9 minutes ago, geowrian said:

I have to agree with the others - you're conflating government classification of a visa class with insurance in a private marketplace.

If they choose to work, they can get coverage from their employer fine.

If they can get added to somebody else's plan, great. That is a private affair, though.

The point is somebody other than the taxpayers need to take care of them, unless the taxpayers vote in people to change that. The cost of medical care is very expensive, especially for the elderly.

 

Or maybe a single payer system will be implemented eventually, which would cover anybody. Who knows. That's for the voters to decide. But it's not there today.

Well for obvious reasons Countries with single payer type schemes tend to be even stricter, I think Canada blocked parents for a number if years.

[vkrishn 97]

5 minutes ago, geowrian said:

I have to agree with the others - you're conflating government classification of a visa class with insurance in a private marketplace.

If they choose to work, they can get coverage from their employer fine.

If they can get added to somebody else's plan, great. That is a private affair, though.

The point is somebody other than the taxpayers need to take care of them, unless the taxpayers vote in people to change that. The cost of medical care is very expensive, especially for the elderly.

 

Or maybe a single payer system will be implemented eventually, which would cover anybody. Who knows. That's for the voters to decide. But it's not there today.

Disagree. Do you have a counter argument to the definition of immediate relative and why a parent would be included in the new rule? Govt absolutely know that parents can't be (in almost all cases ) be added to insurance of petitioner(aka USC son/daughter)

 

"If they choose to work, they can get coverage from their employer fine" : I would love this new rule to be applied to spouse of USC who is immigrating to the US. That they need to work to get health insurance and not "conveniently" added to USC spouse. This would make it fair for all immediate relatives. 

 

"If they can get added to somebody else's plan, great. That is a private affair, though": Yes its a convenient thing to say since spouse can be added now. If they become part of public charge and if a similar situation arises where spouse is not part  or can't be added of USC's employer insurance this rule would be shot down immediately. 

 

 

 

 

[Boiler 45,744]

The issue is showing that the issue has been addressed and sadly as we get older this becomes a bigger and bigger issue.

[SalishSea 17,971]

14 minutes ago, vkrishn said:

It does in the way parent is included as part of immigration ruling when convenient. 

No, I was referring to individual insurance companies/employer-based plans.  Nothing to do with immigration.

[geowrian 22,337]

10 minutes ago, Boiler said:

Well for obvious reasons Countries with single payer type schemes tend to be even stricter, I think Canada blocked parents for a number if years.

Definitely possible. I don't claim to predict how it would be implemented, if it ever were to happen.

 

9 minutes ago, vkrishn said:

Disagree. Do you have a counter argument to the definition of immediate relative and why a parent would be included in the new rule? Govt absolutely know that parents can't be (in almost all cases ) be added to insurance of petitioner(aka USC son/daughter)

Immediate relative is a visa category. It was never intended to match insurance rules.

Edit: Should parents be IRs? Well, that's a different question, and I see a good case against that being the case.

By that logic, 22+ year olds should not be permitted as a dependent of their parents still. Non-biological (or adopted) children shouldn't be eligible either (some plans only require legal guardianship of a dependent to be included).

 

Quote

"If they choose to work, they can get coverage from their employer fine" : I would love this new rule to be applied to spouse of USC who is immigrating to the US. That they need to work to get health insurance and not "conveniently" added to USC spouse. This would make it fair for all immediate relatives. 

The rules are not different for immigrants as non-immigrants, though. If spouses couldn't be added to an employer plan, that would be the case for everybody. the only difference would be eligibility for certain government benefits.

Edited January 28, 2020 by geowrian

[geowrian 22,337]

At the end of the day, somebody has to pay for a new individual to receive medical care. Who should do it is a valid question:

1) The immigrant?

2) The sponsor(s) bringing them over?

3) The taxpayers?

4) The medical provider (via reduced or eliminated rates)?

5) Somebody else?

 

#1 and #2 are the current system.

#3 is not supported by the voters.

#4 is not sustainable...providers will need to either charge others even more or go bankrupt.

 

What is the suggestion for who should pay?

Or is the complaint that parents are not required to be eligible dependents for an ACA plan? Again, that would need to be something the voters have to support. It's not an immigration topic. Obviously the consequence is either the employer pays more or the employees pay more for employer-sponsored plans, or all members in the group for a marketplace plan pay more. So that effectively is option #3 but just in an indirect way.

Edited January 28, 2020 by geowrian

[yuna628 9,687]

It's one thing if you are bringing an able-bodied immigrant that will be able to work and help support their healthcare, or are wealthy enough to support them as a housewife/househusband, and quite another to bring over an elderly person that will likely not be able to/does not intend to or has very limited options for working and therefore limited options for healthcare.

 

Even before this rule change, how did a sponsor expect their aging parent to survive in the US without insurance?

 

11 hours ago, vkrishn said:

Disagree. Do you have a counter argument to the definition of immediate relative and why a parent would be included in the new rule? Govt absolutely know that parents can't be (in almost all cases ) be added to insurance of petitioner(aka USC son/daughter)

 

"If they choose to work, they can get coverage from their employer fine" : I would love this new rule to be applied to spouse of USC who is immigrating to the US. That they need to work to get health insurance and not "conveniently" added to USC spouse. This would make it fair for all immediate relatives. 

 

"If they can get added to somebody else's plan, great. That is a private affair, though": Yes its a convenient thing to say since spouse can be added now. If they become part of public charge and if a similar situation arises where spouse is not part  or can't be added of USC's employer insurance this rule would be shot down immediately. 

 

 

It doesn't matter if the parent can't be added to a plan of a child petitioner. The child petitioner should be responsible and have either enough funds to support their care, or purchase a plan for that parent outright, just like any other person has to do. I often say the same thing to a USC petitioner that has brought their fiance over and then don't know how they are going to get them insurance, because they don't have insurance themselves. Buying insurance outright is also an option for them. It's the responsible thing to do.

 

[SA M 7]

I have received my IR-1 visa recently and planning to travel in few weeks! Will my visa be effected or my entry to USA? I have a MBA degree and my spouse(petitioner) also has a bachelors degree from GeorgeMason which clearly shows we do have professional skills and experience and wont be depending on Govt for support! But I wanted to know can my entry have problems like income and all those aspects since my spouse was recently living with me and will be traveling with me back to the USA! However the Co-sponsor is working at US govt and has earning of $ 45k! M i safe at POE?

[Sweetdreaming 397]

we also shouldnt forget in all this, that the elderly are a bigger drain on medical resources and spend on average 8 times more than say a child of a petitioned relative and about 4 times as much as most petitioned spouses would be. This is clearly an apples to oranges comparison when comparing elderly vs people of working age and children.

Again, younger people to an extent subsidize healthcare of the elderly and therefore build up a certain amount of "credit" for themselves when they reach old age. Someone coming new into the system hasnt been contributing, and therefore should be prepared to pay at least their fair share (which is all thats being asked correct ?)  - this isnt unfair, its unfair to expect the opposite.

[Ontarkie 14,314]

~~Thread reopened as this threads topic is not the same as the other thread. Please try not to cross over I know it will be hard but try to keep the topics separate.~~

Edited January 29, 2020 by Ontarkie