Days after California became the first state in the nation to offer Medi-Cal to all low-income undocumented residents, a Republican lawmaker introduced a controversial measure to stop future health care funding for the group.
The legislation was authored last week by Assemblyman Bill Essayli, R-Corona, a first-term lawmaker who has been outspoken on conservative issues.
The bill’s introduction comes days before Gov. Gavin Newsom would present his plan for closing the state’s $68 billion budget deficit. Newsom has repeatedly cited his commitment to protecting the expansion, which is estimated to cost $4 billion per year.
“This is my way of signaling that it should be the first thing to get cut from the budget before we start cutting into education or health care for Californians or other things that are going to be very tough to cut,” Essayli said. “This should be the first.”
Essayli’s measure, Assembly Bill 1783, came in response to California expanding eligibility of Medi-Cal to all low-income undocumented residents. On Jan. 1, the state opened eligibility to undocumented adults 26 to 49 — the last remaining age group to be included.
Can’t you just say you have insurance and skip the fine? Do they actually check? A very close friend of mine got away with it for years before getting covered at work.
I mean, you can. You always have a choice. It’s just that tax fraud is almost always the wrong choice. You don’t fuck with the IRS. Even if you get away with it for a while, there’s a non zero chance you get audited and have to pay fines out the ass, at best. At worst you’re facing jail time on top of that fine.
Does the IRS care? They aren’t doing fines anymore, just CA and a few other states. I looked but couldn’t find reports of anyone ever being prosecuted for lying about coverage, but maybe I’m not looking in the right places.
Actually, that’s a fair point. I believe you still report the status to the IRS which means you could incur a fine. But your states DOR has similar methods as the IRS.
That said… Even if you don’t get caught that year, you have it looming over your head criminally until the statute of limitations, and civilly for the rest of your life.
TLDR: Just don’t do it. It’s really not worth it.
I think it’s probably worth it. CA has employers reporting the coverage they provide, and they know who’s buying through their marketplace, but I can’t see how they’d prove you didn’t get coverage somewhere else if you told them you did. The only way I could see getting caught would be if you went to the ER and they ratted you out for not having coverage, but you could just give them a fake name to avoid that. If you’re like me, then you’re optimistic about the future and any fine that would eventually be assessed will be easier to deal with than paying one now. Plus future fines are in post-inflation dollars, so that helps too.
? You not having proof of coverage is enough proof.
But they don’t ask for proof of coverage, so they’d have to suspect you somehow before they could ask for proof
Yes, as with a lot of things to do with auditing you’re unlikely to actually be caught for small stuff. It’s the getting caught disproportionately fucking your life over that’s the deterrent.
Eh I’d rather just pay the fine and not have to worry about it. Like I said, it’s cheaper to just pay the $700 than to pay out $6000 for insurance that doesn’t do anything, and I don’t have to trip on getting caught.