Five Basic Facts about Immigrants and Health care

I came across this when rebutting an email that was blaming illegal immigrants for the health care crisis:

http://www.kff.org/medicaid/7761.cfm

1. The primary reason most immigrants come to the U.S. is employment, not health care.
U.S. demand for workers has always been the primary driver of immigration. Most non-citizen immigrants (83%) are in working families, and they are just as likely as citizens to have at least one full-time worker in the family. However, because non-citizens tend to be employed in low-wage jobs that do not offer health insurance, they are much more likely than citizens to be low-income and they are significantly less likely to have employer-based health coverage. They also have more limited access to public health coverage due to eligibility restrictions.

2. Non-citizens are much more likely to be uninsured than citizens, but they are not the primary factor driving the nation’s uninsured problem. Due to their limited access to employer-based health coverage and restrictions for public coverage, non-citizens (legal and undocumented) are far more likely to be uninsured than citizens (47% vs. 15%). However, because non-citizens represent a relatively small share of the U.S. population, they are not the primary cause of the nation’s growing uninsured problem. Although legal and undocumented non-citizens accounted for 22% of the nonelderly uninsured in 2006, citizens still made up the bulk of the uninsured (78%). Further, the majority (76%-80%) of the growth in the number of uninsured from 2000 to 2006 occurred among citizens, not legal and undocumented non-citizens.

3. Federal law generally bars undocumented immigrants and recent legal immigrants from receiving Medicaid and SCHIP coverage.
Undocumented and temporary immigrants have generally been restricted from enrolling in Medicaid and SCHIP since the programs’ inception. Further, since 1996, most legal non-citizens have not been eligible for Medicaid and SCHIP for the first five years they reside in the U.S. After five years, they can enroll if they meet the programs’ other eligibility requirements. Although many non-citizens are precluded from Medicaid and SCHIP, emergency treatment is available to all immigrants, and some states use state-only funds to cover some low-income immigrants who are excluded from Medicaid and SCHIP under the federal restrictions.

4. Non-citizens receive significantly less health care than citizens. Largely due to their higher uninsured rate, non-citizens are much less likely than citizens to have a usual source of care, to have had any recent contact with a health professional, or to receive preventive or primary care. As a result of their lower use of care, non-citizens have significantly lower per capita health care expenditures than citizens. In 2005, average annual per capita health care expenditures for non-citizens were $1,797 versus $3,702 for citizens.


5. Non-citizens are significantly less likely to use the emergency room than citizens. Even though non-citizens have poorer access to care and receive less primary care than citizens, they are significantly less likely than citizens to use the emergency room. Some 13% of adult non-citizens report an emergency room visit in the past year compared to 20% of citizens.