Immigrants and Healthcare Homework Help

Immigrants and Healthcare

Immigrants form part of the population of the U.S.A and contribute to the economy in terms of benefits and costs. This group of the U.S population purchase goods and services, supply labour and pay taxes, and require basic services such as healthcare and education. Most of the immigrants living in the U.S are employed but they seldom have access to the employment-based coverage (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2004). This is because they are employed by people who own small businesses which do not give insurance coverage.
In U.S., the immigrants are usually not entitled to health insurance programs such as the Medicaid. The U.S federal government imposed restriction to immigrants from receiving healthcare in 1996. The restriction requires the immigrants to have resided in the U.S for more than 5 years in order to receive healthcare (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2004). Nonetheless, the immigrants who qualify for Medicaid hardly register for this service because they fear deportation or are ignorant of the application process.
On average, the immigrants are more health than the local people and the healthcare costs for their children are much less than the U.S born citizen children (Morrow, 2009). Problems however, crop up when there are health concerns that affect the immigrants for majority of them are not insured. There health status worsens very quickly because they do not have access to the healthcare and these make hospitals to incur huge costs to treat them. Immigrants take long time to address their health problems and they only go to hospital when it is necessary (Morrow, 2009). This creates a financial burden for the hospitals for the healthcare costs become higher for immigrants than the natives. This has the effect of increasing the healthcare expenditures for the U.S. To improve the healthcare of the immigrants in the U.S, there is need for lobbying for immigrant health bills.

References:
Kaiser Family Foundation (2004). Immigrants and Health Coverage: A Primer. National Council of Laraza. Retrieved on 22nd February 2012 from: http://www.kff.org/uninsured/upload/Immigrants-and-Health-Coverage-A-Primer.pdf
Morrow, R. (2009). Immigration: Rich Diversity or Social Burden? New York: Twenty-First Century Books