There's no free lunch: Massachusetts eliminates health care coverage for some 30,000 legal immigrants to help close a growing deficit.

From The New York Times:

The new state budget in Massachusetts eliminates health care coverage for some 30,000 legal immigrants to help close a growing deficit, reversing progress toward universal coverage just as Congress looks to the state as a model for overhauling the nation’s health care system.

The affected immigrants, permanent residents who have had green cards for less than five years, are now covered under Commonwealth Care, a subsidized insurance program for low-income residents that is central to the groundbreaking health care law enacted here in 2006.

The cut [will] only nondisabled adults from 18 to 65 years old . . . .

Because of its three-year-old law, Massachusetts has the country’s lowest percentage of uninsured residents: 2.6 percent, compared with a national average of 15 percent. The law requires that almost every resident have insurance, and to meet that goal, the state subsidizes coverage for those earning up to three times the federal poverty level, or $66,150 for a family of four.

Under the 1996 federal law that overhauled the nation’s welfare system, the 30,000 immigrants affected by the loss of coverage also do not qualify for Medicaid or other federal aid. Massachusetts is one of the states, including California, New York and Pennsylvania, that nonetheless provide at least some health coverage for such immigrants.