The Affordable Care Act aims to expand access to health care by requiring all U.S. citizens and permanent residents to have health insurance. The health care reform law provides an expansion of Medicaid and state exchanges where people can buy affordable private insurance to increase the availability of coverage, but the millions of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. are barred from these programs.

As a result, some immigrants without legal status worry they will be easier to identify as undocumented because they are uninsured. “While we do not collect information about the immigration status of our patients, the fact that they will be uninsured could be taken as ‘code’ for also being undocumented,” Alicia Wilson, executive director of La Clinica in Washington, DC, told Reuters. Even the U.S.-born children of immigrants can be vulnerable:

According to the Urban Institute, nearly 1 in 10 U.S. families with children are of “mixed status,” with at least one parent who is undocumented and one child who is a citizen.

These children are likely to be eligible for insurance, including the government-sponsored Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). But many remain out of the system because of their parents’ dread that the undocumented spouse will be identified and deported, since U.S. immigration authorities, part of the Department of Homeland Security, must verify a child’s residency status. [...]

According to [National Council of La Raza's Jennifer] Ng’andu, 8 percent of children from families where both parents are U.S. citizens don’t have insurance, compared with 25 percent in households where children live with at least one undocumented parent.

Despite legal protections allowing undocumented immigrants to receive care at hospitals without endangering their status, one single mother from Mexico City who is undocumented said she fears that she will be asked about her immigration status at the hospital “and am always worried that the police will intervene, that my children will be taken away from me.”

Now that an anti-abortion group is poised to put a radical personhood amendment on Colorado’s ballot, potentially marking the state’s third vote on whether to amend its constitution to define a fertilized egg as a person and outlaw contraception and invitro fertilization, GOP politicians are being forced to articulate where they stand on the issue. At least two Colorado Republicans running for Congress have already said they won’t endorse personhood if it comes up for a vote.

The Denver Post reports that Joe Coors and Mike Coffman — the Republican candidates running in Colorado’s 7th and 6th congressional districts, respectively — will not come out in favor of the personhood amendment if it ends up on the ballot this fall:

This time around Joe Coors, now a Republican candidate for the 7th congressional district, will not endorse the personhood initiative, which would ban all abortions in the state, the campaign told the Post Wednesday.

“After its two failed attempts on the ballot, Coloradans have made their decision on this issue,” campaign spokeswoman Michelle Yi said. “Joe respects the voters’ decision and, for the next 90 days, will continue to focus on ideas to get our economy back on track by helping job creators start new businesses and expand their payrolls.” [...]

“I am against all abortions, except when it is necessary to protect the life of the mother,” Coffman told the Post. “Given the fact I’m running for federal office, I will not be endorsing nor opposing any state or local ballot questions.”

Despite the fact that it could make it on the ballot for the third time, personhood remains deeply unpopular in Colorado. Recent polling in the state reports that just 30 percent of voters say they would vote for a personhood initiative on the ballot in November. Most pertinent for Republicans like Coors and Coffman is the fact that the measure’s unpopularity has the potential to turn voters away from politicians who support it: among independent voters, 47 percent say they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who is against personhood, while 19 percent say they would be more likely to vote for one who is for it.

As personhood initiatives made their way into proposed legislation across the country over the past year, Mitt Romney has continued to refrain from taking a firm stance on the issue. Similarly to its previous failures in Colorado, the personhood movement has not yet passed legislation in any state.

Mitt Romney continues to attack President Obama for policies he supported as governor of Massachusetts with a new ad Thursday morning that accuses the administration of waging “a war on religion.”

The commercial claims that an Affordable Care Act regulation requiring employers and insurers to provide preventive health benefits like contraception undermines religious freedoms — but fails to note that houses of worship and religious nonprofits are exempt from offering birth control, or that Obama’s rule closely mirrors a measure included in Romney’s own health reform in Massachusetts. “President Obama used his healthcare plan to declare war on religion, forcing religious institutions to go against their faith,” the ad says, before drawing a parallel to the Soviet Union:

As governor, Romney greatly expanded access publicly-financed contraception through his 2006 health care reform law. The state’s Commonwealth Care, established under Romneycare, offers subsidized, low or no-cost insurance to low-income residents and provides primary and preventive care that includes “family planning services” and prescription contraceptives. In 2005, Romney also “signed a bill that could expand the number of people who get family-planning services, including the morning-after pill” and asked the Department of Health and Human Services to require Catholic hospitals to issue the morning after pill to rape victims.

In fact, the Obamacare rule Romney is now characterizing as an affront to religious liberties is very similar to a 2002 state law he tacitly supported. Like more than two dozen states across the country, Massachusetts required insurers that provide outpatient benefits to cover hormone replacement therapy and all FDA-approved contraceptive methods — well before Obamacare became law. The Massachusetts rule exempts “an employer that is a church or qualified church-controlled organization” from the mandate, but prohibits institutions such as hospitals, universities, and nursing homes from denying their employees birth control coverage.

Romney, who was running for governor in 2002, remained mum on the requirement (as it was debated and ultimately passed unanimously in the Senate and in a 140 to 16 vote in the House) and pledged to maintain the status quo on family-planning related policy throughout his gubernatorial campaign.