MEGAN MCARDLE: Immigration, ObamaCare, and Unintended Consequences.

The idea reportedly under consideration is to alter the conditions under which potential immigrants are considered likely to become a “public charge.” The government currently bars people from admission to the U.S., or from getting a green card, if they are deemed likely to need cash benefits like Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. But of course, there are also substantial non-cash benefits available to people legally living in the U.S., especially health-care services like Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program or Obamacare subsidies. Barring individuals who might benefit from those programs would significantly reduce the number of lower-skilled immigrants who are eligible to stay in the U.S. legally.

Such a change in immigration criteria might also have a major impact on those programs. Because American immigration policy is biased toward family reunification, more than the skills-based systems used by many other countries, we get a lot of lower-skilled immigrants who receive some help from the government (and, of course, contribute to the economy and the tax base). For example, legal immigrants benefited from Obamacare much more than native-born citizens. Those people will continue to benefit; the proposal is apparently to change how we assess new immigrants, not people who have already gotten green cards or been naturalized. But changing the nature of our immigration flows would change how many people those programs cover in the future.

I favor a more skills-based approach, myself.