Debunking myths about immigrants and health care costs

Fears and negative assumptions about immigrants have been used by opponents of health care reform to build opposition, appealing to an already large anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S. This came to a head when Joe Wilson shouted “You lie!” after President Obama spoke the sad truth that undocumented immigrants would not be eligible for federal subsidies to purchase health insurance.
Via the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health’s blog comes word of a study conducted by Project HOPE that refutes the assumption that providing health care to immigrants requires too much public funding:

An examination of health care spending during 1999-2006 for adult naturalized citizens and immigrant noncitizens (which includes some undocumented immigrants) finds that the cost of providing health care to immigrants is lower than that of providing care to U.S. natives and that immigrants are not contributing disproportionately to high health care costs in public programs such as Medicaid.
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In fact, noncitizens, most of whom are recent immigrants, use fewer health care resources than even naturalized citizens. The one exception appears to be that noncitizens have a significantly greater proportion of uncompensated and charity care than naturalized citizens or U.S. natives. However, this finding likely reflects noncitizens’ poor access to care and low socioeconomic status.
These findings have important implications regarding both immigration reform and health care reform. The debate about health reform throughout 2009 ignored how the immigrant population, and particularly noncitizens, would be treated under a new system. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act blocked immigrants’ access to much public health insurance coverage, which we suspect is partly responsible for the high level of uncompensated and charity care being provided to noncitizens. The noncitizen and recent immigrant populations have been given few options to obtain high-quality, affordable health care.

Anti-immigrant and anti-government sentiments combine well to serve those spreading false information in their attempts to block health care reform. Sadly these myths have played into legislation that makes it harder for immigrants to access the care they need. The real issue, in fact, is a lack of access.
I don’t think cost should be a reason to give up on the idea of providing necessary care and support, but this study shows money’s not even the issue. Immigrant’s lives are being caught in the middle of a fight that has nothing to do with reality.