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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Immigrants are not swamping the U.S. health care system
and use it far less than native-born Americans, according to a study released
on Monday.
The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, found that immigrants
accounted for 10.4 percent of the U.S. population but only 7.9 percent of total
health spending and 8 percent of government health spending.
Health spending by the government, insurers and patients themselves averaged
$1,139 per immigrant compared to $2,564 for non-immigrants. Thirty percent of
immigrants used no health care at all in the course of the year.
Immigrant children spent or cost $270 that year, compared to $1,059 for native-born
children.
"Our study lays to rest the myth that expensive care for immigrants is
responsible for our nation's high health costs. The truth is, immigrants get
far less care than other Americans," Dr. Sarita Mohanty, who led the study
while she was at Harvard University and who is now at the University of Southern
California, said in a statement.
"Further restricting their eligibility for care would save little money
and place many immigrants -- particularly children -- at grave risk. Already,
many immigrant children fail to get regular checkups and as a result more end
up needing emergency care, or get no care at all."
The researchers used U.S. government data taken in a 1998 survey from U.S.
residents, including natural-born citizens, immigrants who had become citizens,
temporary residents and illegal aliens.
"The only case in which immigrants' costs for health care were higher
than U.S.-born children was in emergency department visits ($45 vs. $18 per
capita)," the researchers said in a statement.
Most immigrants had health insurance, the survey found. It said 58 percent
of immigrants had private insurance, compared to 74.9 percent of native-born
U.S. citizens, and 17.3 percent of immigrants had some sort of public insurance
such as Medicare or Medicaid, compared to 15 percent of natives.
"Our data indicates that many immigrants are actually helping to subsidize
care for the rest of us," Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a founder of Physicians
for a National Health Program and one of the authors of the study, said in a
statement.
"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."
"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," Rep. Luis Gutierrez (news, bio, voting
record), an Illinois Democratic and chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus
Immigration Task Force, said in a statement.
"This comprehensive new study shows just how unfounded these allegations
are and I hope it will permanently put to rest these misinformed and misguided
myths."
In 2000, there were 28.4 million immigrants in the United States, including
legal and non-legal residents.