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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Chandak Ghosh, MD, MPH, Harvard University/HRSA, 250 West 99th Street, # 9E, New York, NY 10025, 646-698-5180, cghosh1@aol.com
Since the enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) in 1996, new legal immigrants to the United States are barred from Medicaid benefits for five years from arrival. Because private insurance companies do not allow a parent to be named as a dependent on a working offspring’s policy, there is a small but significant number elderly without any health insurance. Thus, the aged with acute and chronic medical problems are forced to use emergency rooms frequently. These patients are often hospitalized for diseases that can normally be controlled with routine and regular care. While most of today’s efforts to define the uninsured focus on children and the working population, the uninsured elderly have been ignored. As all the established population studies (CPS, NHIS, MEPS, etc.) remain deficient in quantifying the exact number affected, this study stands as the first attempt to understand the uninsured elderly. Focusing on New York, the state with the second highest settlement for immigrants, it was found that about 15% of immigrant elderly locate to the state. While only 1.5% of New York’s elderly are uninsured (mainly due to qualifying for, but not yet signing up for, Medicaid), 13% of that number is composed of new immigrants, a group with no options for healthcare coverage. Additionally, New York could potentially save up to $30 million if it extended benefits to this group instead of relying on Emergency Medicaid to cover costs.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Aging, Immigrants
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.