DACA recipients in Maryland may have some reason to be concerned about their health insurance after a recent ruling in the U.S. District Court of North Dakota Western Division.
Judge Daniel Traynor put a stay on a case challenging the federal government’s ability to enforce a rule that would allow DACA recipients to buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
DACA recipients are people who were brought to the United States as children and have received a high school degree or served in the military. While they are allowed to stay in the U.S. legally, they aren’t technically citizens. That creates a mess of legal gray areas for them, including receiving benefits through the ACA marketplace.
The stay allows the 19 Republican-led states challenging the rule to put off providing insurance plans to DACA recipients.
“Although it's not the final legal conclusion, per se, the judge is basically saying, ‘I've got enough here as a legal matter to think that you have a pretty good, a better than 50% chance of prevailing, in my view,’” said Joel Michaels and adjunct professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Cary School of Law.
States like Maryland, which support the rule will be able continue offering health plans to DACA recipients for now.
However, if the judge decides against the rule, then it’s likely Maryland will have to stop providing plans to DACA recipients.
There are about 7,000 DACA recipients in Maryland and nearly 600,000 in the nation.
Michaels says the stay and possible ruling from the court are part of a bigger legal precedent that is hostile to federal lawmaking.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court struck down Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, making it harder for federal agencies to administer and make rules that have impacts across the nation on anything from healthcare to the environment.
“There’s this ongoing tension between federal rulemaking power and federal courts, particularly the highest court, taking a very restrictive view of what the agency's powers are, and that was really the question in this case,” Michaels said.
If the judge rules against the federal rule, it’s unlikely that the Trump administration will make any moves to defend it.
