Medicaid ended Oct. 1 for refugees, asylees and other legal immigrants without green cards under Trump's 2025 law; states flagged more than 281,000

Since Oct. 1, federally funded Medicaid (the federal-state health program for low-income people) no longer covers refugees, asylees (people already granted asylum), trafficking survivors or other immigrants here legally without a green card. The real number. Arizona's 29,000 is the first post-cutoff count (AP). Nine states and D.C. flagged more than 281,000 people in a KFF Health News survey; Florida alone is nearly 177,000. California, outside that tally, expects about 148,000 but is spending $365 million to cover them through July 2027. The Congressional Budget Office's lower 100,000 counts only people left fully uninsured by 2034. The catch. A green card now takes "well over a year," up from about six months before 2025, a resettlement director told KFF Health News, and most new holders then wait five years for Medicaid. Why they're doing it. The White House says immigrants "must be able to support themselves." (TS: refugees and asylees paid about $124 billion more in taxes than they cost governments in 2005-2019, an HHS study found (KFF).) What next. On Jan. 1, 2027, refugee or asylee status stops qualifying for Obamacare subsidies; CBO projects about 1 million lose that eligibility by 2034 (KFF Health News).