Immigrant children's reliance on public health insurance in the wake of immigration reform.
OBJECTIVE
We sought to determine whether the reversal of the public charge rule of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which may have required families to pay for benefits previously received at no cost, led to immigrant children becoming increasingly reliant on public health insurance programs.


METHODS
We conducted a secondary data analysis focusing on low-income children sampled in the 1997 through 2004 versions of the National Health Interview Survey.


RESULTS
Between 1997 and 2004, public health insurance enrollments and the numbers of uninsured foreign-born children in the United States increased by 3.1% and 2.7%, respectively. Using multinomial logistic regression models to account for the substantial differences in socioeconomic status between foreign-born and US-born children, we found that low-income US-born children were just as likely as foreign-born children to have public health insurance coverage (odds ratio [OR] = 1.16; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.89, 1.52) and that, after 2000, foreign-born children were 1.59 times (95% CI = 1.24, 2.05) more likely than were US-born children to be uninsured (vs publicly insured).


CONCLUSIONS
In the wake of the reversal of the public charge rule, immigrant children are increasingly likely to be uninsured as opposed to relying on public health insurance.
Pati
Susmita
S
Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. pati@e-mail.chop.edu
Danagoulian
Shooshan
S
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002662:Child Health Services / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D002669:Child Welfare / Q000191:economics / Q000208:ethnology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002908:Chronic Disease; D054242:Emigrants and Immigrants / Q000145:classification / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004641:Emigration and Immigration / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007348:Insurance, Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008483:Medical Assistance / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017057:Medically Uninsured / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011203:Poverty / Q000208:ethnology; D012923:Social Class; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology
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