More Than Half Of Mexican Immigrants Lack Health Insurance

LOS ANGELES -- More than half the Mexican immigrants living in America do not have health insurance coverage, according to a study released Thursday by the University of California and the Mexican government.



The study, "Mexico-United States Migration Health Issues," was released at the Mexican General Consulate of Los Angeles as part of the fifth U.S.-Mexico Binational Health Week.



The number of people born in Mexico and living in America went up from 879,000 in 1970 to 10.2 million in 2004, while the number of descendants of Mexican immigrants jumped from 5.4 million in 1970 to 26.8 million in 2004, according to the study.



About 32 percent of Mexicans have health insurance coverage, and just 15 percent participate in government health insurance programs, representing 3 percent of the U.S. population using such programs.



Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, noted that few Mexican immigrants are in government health insurance programs.



"Mexican immigrants when they come here, they don't get here with the idea of using public services," Nunez said. "They come here to contribute something."



"This binational study represents an important step between the two countries, and provides us with data and information that can help us shape strategies and policies to improve the health of migrants living in the United States," said Elena Zuniga, secretary general of the Mexican government's National Population Council.



The study found the following:



Of the 10.2 million Mexican immigrants living in the United States, 5.9 million lack health insurance, and 70 percent of recent immigrants are not covered.



About 77 percent of recent Mexican immigrants in cleaning, maintenance, and food preparation jobs have no health insurance, compared with 30 percent of whites born in America, and in professional occupations, 44 percent of recent Mexican immigrants are uninsured compared to 8 percent of whites.



No children are insured in 27 percent of Mexican-headed households in America.



Immigrants from Mexico use emergency rooms about half as often as other Americans.



More than one-third of recent immigrant adults had not seen a doctor in the past two years, five times the rate of U.S.-born whites.



While recent immigrants reported good health, even better than that of Mexican Americans and native white populations, long-stay migrants reported worse health in a number of indicators.



Education also appears to affect whether immigrants have health insurance.



According to the report, "among recent immigrants, insurance coverage for those with more education is almost 60 percent higher than those with the lowest education levels."



The report also found that women who recently immigrated are three times less likely to have pap smears than American-born white women and two times less likely to have mammograms.