Deadline to file immigration documents with Obamacare

Friday is the deadline for some covered by the Affordable Care Act to clear up their immigration status by providing documents requested by federal officials.  Last month, some 6,600 Arizonans were informed that they will lose coverage this month if they don't respond.

Thousands of Arizona residents could lose health insurance coverage soon because they were flagged as possibly being ineligible for Obamacare coverage. More than 6,000 in the state are among 300,000 nationwide who will lose coverage next month if they don't respond, officials said last month.

Updated numbers on how many had responded weren't available this week, a spokesman said.

Those receiving coverage under the plan on the Federal Health Insurance Marketplace must be citizens or legal residents. While federal officials said they have resolved about 450,000 cases in which there were inconsistencies in records, with another 210,000 cases being reviewed, there were still many people who had not responded to requests for information.

Officials said in a news release last month that they had "asked consumers five to seven times — via mail, phone and email — to submit their information."

"A citizenship or immigration data matching issue can happen when the information reported in a consumer’s application, such as a Social Security or Permanent Resident Card number, is incomplete or different than the information the government has on file," said Jack Cheevers of the Department of Health and Human Services.

"A data inconsistency does not necessarily mean there is a problem with an individual’s eligibility for enrollment; it means that additional information is needed to verify the information provided in an application. However, if these supporting documents are not received, health insurance plans will be terminated in order to ensure program integrity and protect taxpayer dollars," Cheevers said.

"In May, we had roughly 970,000 people with citizenship or immigration data-matching errors. Since then, we’ve closed about 450,000 of these cases and have an additional 210,000 cases in progress. We continue to receive up to 60,000 documents a day," Cheevers said.

Those who've been notified of a data matching issue must provide their documents to the feds by Sept. 5, or their insurance coverage will end by Sept. 30, he said.

Those who receive a letter should log into their HealthCare.gov account to upload documents, which can also be mailed.

"Consumers may also contact our call center at 1-800-318-2596 to see what documents they need to submit and see whether the Marketplace has received their information," Cheevers said.