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The Impact of Immigration on Health Insurance Coverage in the United States, 1994-2006

This paper analyzes the issue of immigration and health insurance coverage in the United States. It is important to examine the health insurance status of immigrants, as growth in the immigrant population can drive up the uninsured. Between 1994 and 2006, immigrants accounted for an increasing portion of the nonelderly population, rising from 8.8 percent to 12.8 percent. Over the entire 1994-2006 period, immigrants accounted for 55 percent of the increase in the uninsured. More than 12 million immigrants in the United States were uninsured in 2006, accounting for 26.6 percent of the 46.5 million uninsured individuals in the country. Given that foreign-born entrants to the United States have a high likelihood of being uninsured, it is likely that the uninsured will also grow as a proportion of the population as immigration continues to increase. Data from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (CPS) are used to examine health insurance and immigration. The paper first examines the status of health insurance coverage among immigrants compared with nonimmigrants. It then examines the impact of immigration over the period 1994-2006, a much longer period than was covered in previous research. The legal status of immigrants is not discussed, as relevant data are not included in the CPS; illegal immigrants probably are included in the analysis, but cannot be identified as such. The PDF for the above title, published in the August 2008 issue of EBRI Notes, also contains the fulltext of another August 2008 EBRI Notes article abstracted on SSRN: "Saving for Health Care Expenses in Retirement: The Use of Health Savings Accounts."