Health Care Disparity In Immigrant Population

There are several arguments spotlighting the effect of illegal immigration on current rising health care cost. To this point, illegal immigrants and elected representatives across the country are unable to deny the increased costs placed upon the backs of American taxpayers due to the rise in health care and health care insurance cost. A bill initiated in Indiana will demand local hospitals create a report regarding the costs associated with treating illegal immigrants. Additionally, on a countrywide level, there is an ongoing endeavor to push illegal immigrant children toward federally funded Children’s Health Insurance by the governing body which in turn will effectively raise the current tax rates for all Americans. As an alternative, some policymakers are trying to use creative language in order to guarantee that illegal immigrants were blocked from obtaining health care services (Maxwell & Adolfo 324). For undocumented immigrants within the United States, acquiring health related services or care systematically increases the cost for American taxpayers across the board. Health care providers, Health care insurance companies and both the state and federally supplemented health care funds ( i.e. Medicaid) are forced to close the gap on the negative revenue return by increasing cost of services due to the excessive use and write off of public health care funds and services by illegal immigrants.

Often the term “disparities” is related to a specific racial or ethnic group of people, many variations of disparities exist in America, mainly in regards to health. If any outcome from health disparities can be ascertained is populations and regions in America.

About 36.6% of the population in the U.S belong to or identifies as one of the 5 ethnic minority groups. These groups are Native Hawaiian, Hispanic or Latino, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, African American or Black, or Pacific Islander. The U.S has the most expensive health care system in the world yet many of these minority groups are worse off in regards to socioeconomic and health care status if compared to white Americans. It is plain to see this health disparity when some communities have death rates comparable to 3rd world countries.

There have been legislative bills that have limited the access that illegal immigrants have to medical care, whether it be private insurance or with federal help such as state funded resources like Medical. For example the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 restricts medical care for illegal immigrants. Jeffrey Kullgren a medical student at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, argues that having severe limitations on health care services threatens the public’s health. He argues that the original purposes of the act were to reduce illegal immigration and preserve resources yet the act burdens health care providers and endangers the public’s health. The act stated that it was made in order to “remove the incentive for illegal immigration” and so that “individual aliens not burden the public benefits system”. These were the argument made in order to place eligibility restrictions for service made available by the local, state and federal governments. Although there were exceptions to the act, such as being able to get emergency care and immunizations, it still made getting proper health care very difficult. Placing these kinds of restrictions on people Kullgren argues has consequences on health. One is that it leads to greater waiting times and increase cost which reduces the efficiency of medical facilities. Another is that it can affect the lives of the American born children of immigrants. Although they are able to receive medical services, their parents are afraid to seek health care because they believe that they can get deported. Or they are not sure of whether their children are able to get medical coverage. Another negative result due to the act, Kullgren states, is that public resources are not being effectively used. It costs more to treat emergency situations that could have been easily prevented or that could have

Whether legal or illegal, when migrating from their homeland, regardless of their individual circumstances, immigrants face a number of challenges en route to, and upon arrival into the United States. It is common knowledge that immigrants face language barriers, basic cultural differences, emotional isolation, prejudice and discrimination upon their arrival into the United States. Dr. Jean Rhodes points out that due to their exclusion from public services, [undocumented] immigrants typically settle in areas of deep poverty plagued with inadequate services in addition to substandard living conditions and schools (2005). However, the most difficult and detrimental issue they face is their access to receiving public health care. In his 2003 article in the American Journal of Public Health, Jeffrey Kullgren points out that many of the undocumented immigrants in

The United States is plagued with stark health disparities across its communities (Institute of Medicine, 2013). Defined as the “variation in rates of disease occurrence and disabilities between socioeconomic and/or geographically defined population groups,” disparities describe the inequality of access to basic health services in America (HSRIC, 2016). Over the past decade, health reform has attempted to address this issue of health inequality by strategizing to insure more people and provide increased access to care.

Today immigrants make up approximately 13% of the U.S. population. From 1900 to 1930, immigrants made up somewhere around 12% and 15% of the population (which is about forty two to forty eight million people), and similar increases happened in the 1850s and 1880s. Close to 47 percent of immigrants are naturalized citizens and the remaining 53 percent are undocumented immigrants. Immigrants, being the largest and most rapidly growing population in the U.S., still have the lowest access to medical care, making it difficult to access medical attention like vaccines. Many of the key reasons as to why getting medical attention is so hard is due to the high cost of medical care, having poor work benefits, not being able to qualify for medical care, and fear of having to provide documentation if a case ever involves being an undocumented immigrant, because legal status can have a big impact on eligibility for any health care service.

There are vulnerable groups that have significant problems in the health care system, due to this population being made vulnerable because of their financial circumstances or place of residence, health, age, race, mental or physical state. Access to health care across different populations are the main reason for current disparities in the United States health care system. Moreover, with a large amount attention being given to racial disparities in health, the meaning of race has come under increased scientific examination. (Sondik, 1997) Consequently, race remains to be one of the most politically charged topics in American life, because it's linked to sociocultural element often has led to classifications that have been ambiguous and improperly

The members of the largest ethnic group being granted legal permanent residence in the United States are from Mexico. According the 2010 census 16.3% of the population of the United States is Latino (Spector, 2013). The Latino population will increase to 30 % of the total population by the year 2050 based on current projections (Juckett, 2013). There are several barriers to health care faced by many in the Latino population. They include: language barriers, lack of health insurance, mistrust, not have a legal status and a different culture of health care (Juckett, 2013, p. 48). Juckett also points out that most medications that require a prescription in the US are obtained without prescriptions in immigrants’ home countries (2013).

There are many immigrants that come to the United State to start a new chapter in their life. However, they might develop health issues later and have to see a physician to be treated. “Immigrants have limited access to

Migration for Mexican immigrants has not always been easy. Having to face the threat of deportation on a daily basis, the stress of acculturation, and coping with an unfamiliar territory has not intimidated nor defeated this population as they seek a better quality of life. As history would have it, the Mexican population not only makes up a large number of immigrants that live in the United States, but they have also contributed to and molded the culture that is seen in North America today (Zong & Batalova, 2016). A main element that has constantly created a roadblock for Mexican immigrants is their inability to access healthcare which has proven to have many negative outcomes on their livelihood.

Within the past couple of year, the United States as a whole has had challenges with improving the overall population health. The increase in healthcare costs has caused a distinct disparity within minority groups. Under the Affordable Care Act, cost and access has drastically affected many individuals. Despite the United States increase in spending, many are still uninsured and vulnerable to detrimental health outcomes. The uninsured have no access to sufficient and effective health care services, meaning they resort to little or no care at all. For example, different racial and minority groups are without access to Medicaid and Medicare due to its restrictions. Targeted groups such as African Americans and Hispanics have lower rates of health care coverage, access and overall quality of care. It is evident that minorities were misrepresented among the coverage provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Apart from such target groups, whites appear to receive better health care coverage and outcomes. This has become a problem when it comes to health care access, meaning there are major health discrepancies. There is a disparity gap between the different ethnic groups that the Affordable Care Act fails to accurately address and provide provisions to such requirements for government-funded assistance programs (Shi & Singh, 2015).

The CDC report shows that non-Hispanic white persons who were living in poor conditions were unable to go to work due to health issues. It is stated that it was twice as much as the Hispanic population. Moreover, it was reported that white people experienced greater incidents of adverse medical consultancy than the Hispanic persons. Statistics show that the numbers are 129 and 82 (out of thousand) respectively. However, the figures for health insurance in case of Hispanic people are not satisfactory. Around 32% of Hispanic population, who lie in the age bracket of less than 65, is not medically insured. (Cdc.gov, 2015)

Yes, healthcare is essential, however; should everyone have direct access? Should immigrants be privy to the healthcare benefits solely because they reside in the United States? Are immigrants the cause of a major deficit? Should taxpayers be liable to cover health expenses for individual immigrants or families who don’t contribute? Are America hurting Americans by providing healthcare to all? Yes, America is the ideal place to live, however; if we continue to cater to all, will we eventually exhaust the resources needed for Americans to survive? This research seeks to

Moreover, according to government reports, noncitizens are much less likely than citizens to use the benefits for which they are eligible. For example, immigrants, especially the undocumented, tend to use medical services much less than the average American.3 In fact, the average immigrant uses less than half the dollar amount of health care services as the average native-born citizen.4 Moreover, the claim that immigrants account for high rates of emergency room (ER) visits is refuted by research; in fact, communities with high rates of ER usage tend to have relatively small percentages of immigrant residential. (immigration 1).