The high costs of health care and the erosion of health insurance coverage are two important long-term challenges that confront all Americans.  But these problems are especially acute for immigrants to the United States, who have extremely low rates of health insurance coverage and very poor access to health care services.  Immigrants — particularly those who have not yet naturalized into American citizenship — encounter roadblocks that make it far more difficult to get either public or private health insurance and to obtain adequate access to health care.

As a result of these barriers, almost half of all immigrants are uninsured, a level that falls far outside the mainstream of most Americans’ experiences. 

Immigrants and Health Care Reform: What’s Really at Stake?
By Randy Capps, Marc R. Rosenblum, and Michael Fix
Health care reform proposals under consideration in Congress that would exclude many legal immigrants from core benefits and impose new verification requirements would have important spillover consequences for taxpayers and other health care consumers. In a new report, MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy offers the first-ever estimates of the size of uninsured immigrant populations in major immigrant-destination states, the number of immigrant workers covered by employer-provided plans, and the share of immigrants employed by small firms likely to be exempted from employer coverage mandates. The report, based on MPI analysis of Census Bureau data, also examines health coverage for immigrants by legal status, age, and poverty levels.
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Access to Health Care and Health Insurance: Immigrants and Immigration Reform
By Leighton Ku and Demetrios G. Papademetriou
Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
February 2007

Access to Health Care after Immigration Reform – Practical Considerations for Policymakers
By Adam Gurvitch
Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
February 2007

Health Insurance Coverage of Children in Mixed-Status Immigrant Families
By Randy Capps, Genevieve M. Kenney, Michael Fix
Snapshot 3 of America’s Families, No. 12
Urban Institute, 2003

The Health and Well-Being of Young Children of Immigrants
By Randy Capps, Michael Fix, Jason Ost, Jane Reardon-Anderson, and Jeffrey Passel
Urban Institute, February 2005

Fifty-six percent of low-income noncitizen immigrants are uninsured compared to 23 percent of low-income natives.

Between 1995 and 2004, the share of uninsured immigrant children rose from 44 to 49 percent. 

Immigrants are less likely to use emergency rooms than native citizens and their medical expenditures are substantially lower than natives’.

The Immigrant Child Health Improvement Act is expected to be reintroduced in Congress this year. The Act, last introduced in 2005, would allow states to use federal funds to provide Medicaid to legally present pregnant women and their children regardless of when they entered the United States.

Health Care for Children of Immigrants
Annotated Bibliography, National Conference of State Legislatures, Health Care and Children in Immigrant Families Project, January 2007

New Medicaid Citizenship Documentation Requirement Is Taking a Toll: States Report Enrollment Is Down and Administrative Costs Are Up
By Donna Ross, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2007

Hospital Language Services for Patients with Limited English Proficiency
By Romana Hasnain-Wynia, Julie Yonek, Debra Pierce, Ray Kang, and Cynthia Hedges Greising
Health Research and Education Trust, October 2006

Paying for Language Services in Medicare
By Leighton Ku
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, October 2006

Language Services Resource Guide for Health Care Providers
By Alyssa Sampson, Cross Cultural Health Care Program
National Health Law Program and The National Council on Interpreting in Health Care, October 2006

A Profile of Young Children in the Los Angeles Healthy Kids Program
By Embry M. Howell, Lisa Dubay, Genevieve M. Kenney, Louise Palmer, Ian Hill, Moira Inkelas, and Martha Kovac
Urban Institute, October 2006

The Role of Employer-Sponsored Health Coverage for Immigrants: A Primer
The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, July 28, 2006

Unequal Access: Immigrants and U.S. Health Care PDF
By Sarita A. Mohanty
The Immigration Policy Center, July 5, 2006

New Requirements for Citizenship Documentation in Medicaid
Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, July 2006

Shared Destiny: Shaping a Binational Agenda for Health Priorities in the San Diego-Baja California Border Region
By Robert L. Bach and Richard Kiy
International Community Foundation, June 30, 2006

Experiences with Medicare Part D: Stories from Low-Income, Ethnically Diverse and Medically Needy Californians
Lake Research Partners, June 2006

What Do Parents Say About the Los Angeles Healthy Kids Program?
Findings from the First Evaluation Focus Groups, Urban Institute, April 17, 2006

Making Public Programs Work for Communities of Color:
An Action Kit for Community Leaders
The Minority Health Initiatives Department at Families USA, February 2006

“A Randomized, Controlled Trial of the Effectiveness of Community-Based Case Management in Insuring Uninsured Latino Children”
By Glenn Flores, et al., Pediatrics 116(6):1433-1441, December 2005

Are Immigrants Responsible for Most of the Growth of the Uninsured?
By J. Holahan and A. Cook
Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, October 2005

“Health Care Expenditures of Immigrants: A Nationally Representative Analysis”
By S. Mohanty et al., American Journal of Public Health 95, No. 8 (Aug 2005): 1431-8

Social Networks and Health Service Utilization
By Catherine Deri
Journal of Health Economics 24, No. 6 (2005): 1076-1107

Language Services Guide for Healthcare Organizations
The Office of Minority Health, September 2005

Straight Talk: Model Hospital Policies and Procedures on Language Access
By Melinda Paras, Paras and Associates
California Health Care Safety Net Institute, 2005

Language Barriers in Health Care Settings: An Annotated Bibliography of Research Literature
By Elizabeth A. Jacobs, Niels Agger-Gupta, Alice Hm Chen, Adam Piotrowski, Eric J. Hardt
The California Endowment, August 2003

“Patchwork Policies: State Assistance for Immigrants Under Welfare Reform”
By Wendy Zimmermann and Karen C. Tumlin
Assessing the New Federalism Occasional Paper No. 24, Urban Institute, 1999

From Generation to Generation: The Health and Well-Being of Children in Immigrant Families
Don Hernandez and Evan Charney, Editors
National Academy Press, 1998