title: Legal status and health insurance among immigrants.
abstract: The foreign-born represent a disproportionate share of nonelderly U.S. adults without health insurance. Using data from Los Angeles County, we find that most of the insurance disparities between the foreign-born and native-born can be explained by traditional socioeconomic factors. Undocumented immigrants, however, have lower rates of coverage-both private and public-even after a wide array of factors are controlled for. Applying Los Angeles County rates to the U.S. population implies that undocumented immigrants account for one-third of the total increase in the number of uninsured adults in the United States between 1980 and 2000.
authors.affiliation: RAND in Santa Monica, California, USA. dgoldman@rand.org
authors.forename: Dana P
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Goldman
authors.forename: James P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Neeraj
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sood
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003625:Data Collection; D004641:Emigration and Immigration / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D017057:Medically Uninsured; D008875:Middle Aged; D014481:United States