The number of uninsured immigrants is growing, per study
06 08 08 - 11:57
Study: Uninsured population grows with immigration
The uninsured population is increasingly made up of immigrants, according to a study released today by the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
The nonpartisan research organization, which doesn't take policy positions, tracked the increase in the uninsured population over the last 12 years. Native-born Americans still account for the majority -- three-fourths -- of the persons without health insurance, but the percentage of immigrants in those ranks has grown from 18.8 percent in 1994 to 26.6 percent in 2006.
Over the same 12-year period, the percentage of native-born uninsured dropped from 81.2 percent to 73.4 percent, EBRI said.
In raw numbers, that means 12.3 million immigrants and 34.1 million native-born U.S. residents had no health insurance in 2006, the end of the study period.
EBRI drew from Census data to compile the study. It did not differentiate as to the legal or illegal status of immigrants, so it's impossible to use the data to draw conclusions about undocumented residents.
The study found that slightly more than 46 percent of foreign-born noncitizens in the U.S. were uninsured in 2006. That compared to an uninsured population of 19.9 percent of foreign-born who had become U.S. citizens and 15 percent of native-born citizens.
The longer an immigrant had resided in the United States, the more likely they were to be insured, the study found. But immigrants also were more likely to be in low-wage jobs that didn't provide health benefits.
The report said that lack of access to health insurance for immigrants was affected by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996, which put a five-year ban on receipt of public health care and other public programs by most newly arrived legal immigrants.
EBRI found that more than half of the uninsured immigrant population lived in four states: California, Texas, Florida, and New York. Together, those states were home to 58.7 percent of the uninsured immigrants in 2006.
The full report is accessible at www.ebri.org.
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