Insured immigrants spend less on health: study

This new study shows that immigrants are not a drain on the health system. This study shows that more than half of immigrants are fully insured. - - Donna Poisl

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Insured immigrants have lower medical expenses than U.S.-born citizens, even after accounting for lower levels of insurance coverage, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

They said the findings contradict the popular belief that immigrants are a drain on the U.S. health system.

"Many people claim that immigrants are using large health care expenditures in the United States and they are causing emergency room bills to soar," said Leighton Ku, a health policy researcher at George Washington University, whose study appears in the American Journal of Public Health.

"When you control for their health status and all sorts of characteristics like age, they actually have medical expenditures that are far below those of U.S. citizens," Ku said in a telephone interview.
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