Although the uninsured population in the United States is still dominated by native-born Americans, it is increasingly comprising immigrants, who account for about 55 percent of the increase in the U.S. uninsured population over a 12-year period ending in 2006, according to a study released Aug. 5 by the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).
The study, published in the August 2008 EBRI Notes, reports that in 1994, immigrants accounted for 18.8 percent of the U.S. uninsured population, while by 2006 they accounted for 26.6 percent of the uninsured population. During the same period, native-born Americans dropped as a percentage of the uninsured, from 81.2 percent in 1994 to 73.4 percent in 2006.
The uninsured immigrant population increased from 6.9 million in 1994 to 12.3 million in 2006, an 80 percent increase. By comparison, the uninsured native-born population increased from 29.7 million to 34.1 million, a 15 percent increase over the same period. The study, which uses Census Bureau data, does not differentiate the legal status of the immigrants. Illegal immigrants probably are included but cannot be identified as such, says the study. Read the report.
