Who Pays for Immigrants’ Health Care in the US?

Abstract

The cross-sectional study by Ommerborn et al 1 analyzes medical expenditures from public and private insurers as well as payments by immigrants, particularly undocumented immigrants, for health care services in the US. [2][3][4] The broad strokes of this analysis are (1) immigrants generally use fewer health care services than similar US-born citizens and therefore have lower medical expenditures, and (2) immigrants typically pay taxes and health insurance premiums like most citizens, but (3) federal policies make it more difficult for many immigrants, particularly undocumented immigrants, to receive governmental health assistance from programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplaces. The net result is that immigrants generally pay more into the health care system through taxes and premiums than they use in the form of expenditures for health care services. Thus, immigrants effectively help to subsidize the costs of health care for US citizens. The Social Security Administration has long