Immigrants use half as much health care as US-born residents

Health Care Expenditures of Immigrants in the United States: A Nationally Representative Analysis
By Sarita A. Mohanty, MD, MPH, Steffie Woolhandler, MD, MPH, David U. Himmelstein, MD, Susmita Pati, MD, MPH, Olveen Carrasquillo, MD, MPH and David H. Bor, MD
American Journal of Public Health
August 2005

Conclusions. Health care expenditures are substantially lower for immigrants than for US-born persons. Our study refutes the assumption that immigrants represent a disproportionate financial burden on the US health care system.

>From the discussion:

Our findings show that widely held assumptions that immigrants are consuming large amounts of scarce health care resources are invalid; these findings support calls to repeal legislation proposed on the basis of such assumptions. The low expenditures of publicly insured immigrants also suggest that policy efforts to terminate immigrants’ coverage would result in little savings. In addition, lower health care expenditures by immigrants suggest important disparities in health care use, especially for children. Immigrant children will grow up to become a major segment of the US workforce in the coming years. Ensuring access to health services needed for proper growth and development should be a national priority.

Policies that may improve immigrants’ access to care include providing interpreter services, ending restrictions on Medicaid and State Children’s Health Insurance Program eligibility, improving employer-provided coverage for immigrant workers, and implementing universal national health insurance. Our study lends support to these and other initiatives aimed at reducing and ultimately eliminating disparities in access to and use of health services.

http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/95/8/1431

Comment: A comment from the PNHP press release places the issue in proper perspective:

“Our data indicates that many immigrants are actually helping to subsidize care for the rest of us. Immigrant families are paying taxes – including Medicare payroll taxes – and most pay health insurance premiums, but they’re getting only half as much care as other families.” said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a study co-author and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program.