WASHINGTON – A study released last week by the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute shows immigrants make up a growing share of the U.S. uninsured population, accounting for about 55 percent of the increase in the uninsured from 1994 to 2006.
Native-born Americans still make up the majority of the uninsured, but immigrants’ share of the uninsured population rose from 18.8 percent to 26.6 percent in 12 years, the study shows.
The shift reflects a sharp increase in the uninsured immigrant population, from 6.9 million in 1994 to 12.3 million in 2006, an 80 percent-increase, the study shows. By comparison, the uninsured native-born population grew by 15 percent, from 29.7 million to 34.1 million.
The rise in uninsured immigrants has also outpaced the growth in the foreign-born population overall, though that has also grown rapidly, from 22.6 million in 1994 to 33.8 million in 2005, or about 58 percent.
The new study is based on Census Bureau data and does not differentiate the legal status of the immigrants; illegal immigrants probably are included, the authors wrote.
Other findings include that:
• More than 46 percent of foreign-born non-citizens were uninsured in 2006, more than triple the rate for native-born persons, 15 percent.
• More recent arrivals are likelier to be uninsured: Just over 27 percent of non-naturalized immigrants who arrived before 1970 were uninsured in 2006, compared with 45.5 percent of those who arrived in the 1980s and 49 percent of those who came between 2000 and 2006.
• Immigrants are disproportionately employed in low-wage jobs, in small firms, and in service or trade occupations, which are less likely to offer health benefits.
The study also linked the high uninsured rate with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996, which imposed a five-year ban on receipt of health and other public programs by most newly arrived legal immigrants.
Comparable figures at this level of detail are not available for Rhode Island.
But a report earlier this year by the R.I. Department of Human Services’ Center for Child and Family Health found that, as of 2005, 11.8 percent of Rhode Islanders were uninsured. That was up from 6.2 percent since 2000 but still lower than the 12.9-percent uninsured rate in 1995, before a major state Medicaid overhaul and expansion.
The state report also found that Hispanics are far likelier to be uninsured than non-Hispanic whites: In 2004, 20 percent of Hispanics were uninsured, vs. 7 percent of whites.
The Employee Benefit Research Institute is a nonpartisan research, education and public policy group established to promote “sound” benefit programs. Additional information – including the August 2008 EBBI report “The Impact of Immigration on Health Insurance Coverage in the United States, 1994–2006” – is available at www.ebri.org.
Information from the R.I. Department of Human Services (DHS), including recent reports, is available at www.dhs.ri.gov.i>
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