Hillary Clinton explains her stance on Obamacare for undocumented immigrants
Hillary Clinton on Monday night explained the way she would at least partially expand access to Obamacare to undocumented immigrants.
"There are two steps here," the Democratic presidential front-runner said in a televised town hall on CNN. "If someone can afford to pay for an insurance policy off the exchanges that were set up under the Affordable Care Act, I support that."
Even if an immigrant is not in the country legally, they should be able to pay full price for health insurance, she said. "If they can afford it, they should be able to go into the marketplace and buy it."
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However, Clinton continued, "it is not going to apply to people who are in need of subsidies in order to afford that."
More than 80 percent of Americans enrolled in an Obamacare plan are receiving government subsidies to help pay for their coverage. Meanwhile, the Affordable Care Act explicitly prohibits undocumented immigrants from using the Obamacare marketplaces at all.
Clinton said that the question of whether undocumented immigrants should be eligible for subsidies will "have to be worked out in comprehensive immigration reform."
"What I do want to see is that we have more options for undocumented people to be able to get the health care they need," she explained. "It's not only the right and moral thing to do for them. It's also important that we keep ourselves healthy, and public health requires that. So I see this as a two-step process."
