Detroit Evening Report: State waives Medicaid waiting period for green card holders
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Some non-citizens living in Michigan can now apply for Medicaid without waiting five years.
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The state has waived the waiting period for green card holders up to age 21 and pregnant women with legal status.
Susan Reed runs the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center. She says the state’s immigrants are twice as likely to be UN-insured than U.S.-born residents. That includes Asian, Arab, Hispanic, and Latin American communities.
“Our reality for non-citizens, there is so much misinformation about recent changes to something called the federal public charge rule that frightens a lot of immigrant families and families with immigrant heads of household, even U.S. citizen children, but immigrant heads of household out of getting benefits,” she said
Reed says the changes also affect immigrant children and foster care youth, who are on a path to citizenship. She says the Medicaid expansion will help about 4,000 people.
Reported by Nargis Rahman, WDET
Other headlines for Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024:
- A Wayne County judge has temporarily stopped the shipment of low-level radioactive waste from New York to a landfill near Belleville.
- Hamtramck Mayor Amer Ghalib says he met privately with Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday in Flint, during which the Republican presidential candidate asked Ghalib for his endorsement, the Detroit News reports.
- Michigan Secretary of State Joscelyn Benson introduced the 2024 Campus Voter Registration Challenge at six Michigan universities on Thursday.
- Historic Fort Wayne is hosting an indigenous wild rice camp from 1-6 p.m. this Sunday, Sept. 22. The event will teach participants how to harvest wild rice, what tools are used for harvesting, and the different wild rice grains that are native to the state of Michigan.
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