July 25 (Bloomberg) — Health-care costs for U.S. immigrants were an average of $1,139 a year each, half as much as medical expenses for citizens born in the U.S., according to an analysis by Harvard and Columbia universities.
U.S.-born citizens had an average of $2,565 a year in health costs in 1998, the latest year for which data were available for analysis, according to the study in the tomorrow’s issue of the American Journal of Public Health.
Legal and illegal immigrants, and their children, may skip preventive care, according to the researchers. This may mean that immigration isn’t a factor in rising U.S. health-care costs, the researchers said. U.S. medical expenses rose an estimated 7.5 percent last year, to $1.8 trillion, according to the U.S. government.
“We constantly hear anti-immigrant extremists, elected officials and media commentators making baseless claims about how immigrants are contributing to our nation’s high health-care costs,” U.S. Representative Luis Gutierrez, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Task Force said in an e-mailed statement. “This comprehensive new study shows just how unfounded these allegations are.”
The researchers spent three years analyzing data from a 1998 survey of 21,241 people in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. The panel collects health-spending information on the U.S.
The data is usually released three years after it is collected, Sarita Mohanty of the University of Southern California, a study co-author, said.
“We had seen in the press and media that there were concerns that immigrants were burdening the health-care system,” she said.
‘Grave’ Disparity
Most of the results weren’t very surprising, though the disparity in the amount of health-care immigrant children received compared with children of U.S. descent was, according to the doctors. Total spending for immigrant children’s care was $270 a year compared with $1,059 for U.S.-born children, the study found.
“We were surprised by the grave disparity in health-care that immigrant children received,” Mohanty said. “The difference was remarkable.”
When the lower cost of health-care is combined with the average paid in taxes by legal and illegal immigrants, in effect they may help subsidize medical costs for U.S.-born citizens, the review showed.
The study cited a report from the National Research Council that concluded that immigrants add as much as $10 billion to the economy each year and that they will pay about $80,000 per capita more in taxes than they use in government services over their lifetimes.
Policy Makers
Mohanty said she would like to see more discussion among communities and policy makers as a result of the study. She said her hope is that the facts of the study will dispel the notions that immigrants burden the system.
“When you separate fact from fiction, as this study does, you see the real picture of our immigrant community,” Gutierrez said.
Calls seeking comment from Republican Senators Jon Kyl of Arizona, and John Cornyn of Texas weren’t immediately returned.
Feeling Unwelcome
Olveen Carrasquillo, of Columbia University in New York, that cultural barriers, account for some of the reasons that immigrants use the health-care system less. Carrasquillo, a co- author, practices medicine on the city’s West Side, which has a large immigrant and Hispanic population.
“A lot of places aren’t friendly to immigrants,” he said. “They have a lack of interpreters, and many times they feel unwelcome and intimidated by the system.”
These barriers can lead to immigrants seeking health-care only until illness has significantly advanced, the authors all agreed. Steffie Woolhandler, a study co-author and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, said that she has seen cases where immigrants have delayed medical attention.
“They’re waiting until they’re desperately ill to go to the hospital,” she said.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Mario Parker in Washington at Mparker16@bloomberg.net