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One in Three Immigrants Without Health Insurance

For Immediate Release
June 21, 2004
Contact: Colleen Coffey
202/266-1910
Divya Pakkiasamy
202/266-1927

As health insurance premiums continue to increase, access to health care has become a critical election-year issue. Elizabeth Grieco, senior demographer at the Migration Policy Institute, has compiled facts on health insurance coverage of immigrants in the United States based on recent survey data. Some key findings include:

• Immigrants are more than twice as likely to be uninsured than natives. Thirteen percent of natives were without health insurance in 2002, compared to 33 percent of the foreign born.
• Non-citizens are more likely to be uninsured than naturalized citizens; 18 percent of the foreign born who have naturalized were not insured in 2002 compared to 43 percent of non-citizens.
• Of the foreign born with health insurance in 2002, 78 percent were covered by a private insurance plan.
• The longer immigrants reside in the United States, the more likely they are to hold health insurance, with data indicating that the percent uninsured drops dramatically as the time of residence increases.

The attached PDF provides further details and findings, as well as detailed charts and tables. Additional fact sheets on the foreign born in the U.S. workforce can be accessed at http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/fact_sheets.php.