Omama Bans DREAMers From Heathcare

By Victor Landa, NewsTaco

Hidden between the folds of the Romeny donor-meeting secret recording, and the polls that put President Obama at nearly 70% approval among Latinos was this: a couple of weeks ago, the Obama administration quietly excluded young Latino DREAMers from Affordable Care Act eligibility.  The news is starting to seep into the mainstream media this week.

The New York Times published a story about it today, front page, above the fold.

The decision — disclosed last month, to little notice — has infuriated many advocates for Hispanic Americans and immigrants. They say the restrictions are at odds with Mr. Obama’s recent praise of the young immigrants.

I’ll save you some time in the coming weeks and give you an advance snippet of how this story will unfold. Becasue we’re in the midst of the final leg of a presidential race the spin will engage at it’s highest cycle. The GOP will cast the President as a hypocrite – how can he say he’s pro-immigrant then leave the DREAMers out of the cornerstone legislation of his presidency? The Democrat surrogate machine will cast the GOP as two faced –  how can they talk about being strong against immigration then criticize the president for taking a strong stance?

This will go on in differing variations for several days until some new revelation, gaffe, poll, unemployment number, or new excerpt of the secretly taped Romney donor speech is released. Then the DREAMer exclusion from the ACA will become fodder for political side-wipes and PAC funded attack ads.

Meanwhile, the issue of the DREAMer exclusion will float along with the rest of the election rhetoric and  hoopla, remain in effect, but be mostly forgotten. Such are the perils of the presidential election season spin-rapids.

But a question will remain: does it matter? Let’s chew on it, slowly.

• The DREAMers wouldn’t have been eligible for the ACA before the deferred action anyway. It sounds dismissive, I know, but that’s the fact.
• The idea is that these young people will get an education and eventually a good paying job, and with that job be able to afford their own healthcare. So viewed from the point of it’s ultimate end, the deferred action solves the DREAMer healthcare problem in it’s intent.
• Logic, applied to political momentum, would tend to lean toward the deferred action directive as an initial step toward immigration reform, which would include a path to citizenship (there’s fodder here for a series of posts, but I’ll keep my comment to this: in a second term President Obama could have the political reserve he needs to push immigration reform forward. In his first term he only had juice for one issue, and he chose Healthcare. In his first presidential campaign he over-promised and under-delivered, a rookie mistake.) DREAMer citizens would qualify for the ACA. It would just be a matter of time and politics.

So in the end, aside from the campaign spin’s inevitably high decibel level, there will be little change in the lives of the DREAMers. The President’s exclusion may have been no more than a clarification; the question of whether the DREAMers qualified for the ACA was sure to come up.  Still, the headlines and the news will read as an affront to some, a hypocrisy to others and it will sting many in the Latino community.

My guess? Obama’s almost 70% approval among Latinos will tumble a few points, and then it’ll probably creep back up.