Health Care Expenditures of Immigrants in the United States: A Nationally Representative Analysis

OBJECTIVES: We compared the health care expenditures of immigrants residing in the United States with health care expenditures of US-born persons. METHODS: We used the 1998 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey linked to the 1996-1997 National Health Interview Survey to analyze data on 18398 US-born persons and 2843 immigrants. Using a 2-part regression model, we estimated total health care expenditures, as well as expenditures for emergency department (ED) visits, office-based visits, hospital-based outpatient visits, inpatient visits, and prescription drugs. RESULTS: Immigrants accounted for 39. 5 billion (SE=4 billion) in health care expenditures. After multivariate adjustment, per capita total health care expenditures of immigrants were 55% lower than those of US-born persons (1139 vs 2546). Similarly, expenditures for uninsured and publicly insured immigrants were approximately half those of their US-born counterparts. Immigrant children had 74% lower per capita health care expenditures than US-born children. However, ED expenditures were more than 3 times higher for immigrant children than for US-born children. CONCLUSIONS: Health care expenditures are substantially lower for immigrants than for US-born persons. Our study refutes the assumption that immigrants represent a disproportionate financial burden on the US health care system.