I suppose many will typify this as just another Obamacare glitch, but Obamacare exchanges will treat naturalized citizens as second-class citizens for 2015 open enrollment:
HealthCare.gov’s new EZ application for coverage can’t be used by legal immigrants or naturalized U.S. citizens, prompting concern that many Hispanics and Asians will go right back into long enrollment queues this year.
While immigrants living in the country illegally cannot get coverage, millions who are lawfully present are entitled to the law’s benefits, as well as people who were born overseas and later became U.S. citizens.
The administration is highlighting a simplified online application as one the major improvements for 2015. Most new applicants will page through 16 screens, instead of the 76 that applicants had to muddle through previously. But it turns out that immigrants and naturalized citizens are a major exception, because they’re in a category the administration calls “complex cases.”
My concerns are very different than those who are concerned that some applicants will still have to wade through a 76-screen online application to get their Obamacare subsidy. My concern is that naturalized citizens are being treated as second-class citizens by a government bureaucracy.
Other than being prohibited from serving as President, or having to wait a few years before serving in Congress, there should be no difference between a citizens who are born here and those who immigrate legally, wait many years to be naturalized after paying significant fees, and then take the Oath of Allegiance.
There are “complex” issues of naturalization during that process, but they should be completely in the rear-view mirror of the freshly minted citizen. I ought to know: I am one. I arrived in the U.S. in 2005 and applied for a green card in 2008. At that time, I gave the FBI and DHS the information they needed to conduct a lengthy and thorough investigation of my life in both the U.S. and my home country. I even reported my record in the Boy Scouts!
When I applied for naturalization in 2013, I went through the whole investigation again, and an in-person interview. My wife had a separate interview, just so they could detect any gaps in our stories. Believe me, the federal file on a naturalized citizen is as thick as the printed version of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. There is nothing the government doesn’t know about us.
Yet, our cases are too “complex” for Obamacare’s exchanges. This is another sign that the Obamacare exchanges are going to have just as much trouble in the second open enrollment as they did in the first.
Any ideas how to fix the equality of this issue?
Where is the connection to second-class citizenship? Is it the fact that the application is longer? Does this necessarily mean the service is inferior?
Yes, by definition, I would say.
The connection to a second-class citizenship exists do to the fact that an official U.S. passport is not accepted as proof of citizenship. If you correctly identify yourself as a naturalized citizen, only a Certificate of Nationalization is accepted as proof of citizenship. This delineates a clear distinction between two types of citizens.