Health Policy Fact Sheet February 2018 Latino Immigrants Have Higher Rates of Health Insurance in States with Inclusive Policies Maria-Elena Young and Steven P. Wallace S tate policymakers have the discretion to extend a range of rights, protections, and opportunities for eligibility to Latino Inclusive policies not only make critical resources available to immigrants, but together these policies create a social immigrants who lack citizenship. Inclusive environment that is more welcoming to policies range from eligibility to public them. In such environments, immigrants benefits to access to higher education and are likely to feel more comfortable workplace protections, to limitations on accessing health care, engaging with involvement in immigration enforcement. providers, and obtaining resources to As a result, states across the U.S. have different levels of inclusion of their Latino promote their well-being. immigrant residents.1 Appendix B. Number of inclusive state immigrant policies Exhibit 1 Number of Inclusive State Immigrant Policies 0-1 2 3 4–5 6+ More inclusive WA ME MT ND VT OR MN NH MA ID SD WI NY CT RI WY MI PA NJ IA MD NE NV OH DE IL IN UT CO WV VA DC CA KS MO KY NC TN AZ OK AR SC NM MS AL GA TX LA AK FL HI UCLA CENTER FOR HEALTH POLICY RESEARCH Exhibit 2 Types of Inclusive Policies by Two States: California and Alabama California Alabama Inclusive Policies ✓ ✕ Provides health insurance to low-income children and pregnant women, regardless of legal status. ✓ ✕ Gives in-state tuition to undocumented university students. ✓ ✕ Limits the use of E-Verify work authorization. ✓ ✕ Grants driver’s licenses regardless of legal status. ✓ ✕ Limits police collaboration with immigrant enforcement. Recent research shows that in states that Noncitizens Have Lower Rates than have a greater number of inclusive policies, Naturalized Citizens Latino immigrants who lack citizenship Research also shows that noncitizens, even have higher rates of health insurance in the most inclusive states, have much coverage. Controlling for sociodemographic lower rates of health insurance coverage factors such as age, education, and income, than immigrants who are naturalized. noncitizen Latinos in states with more than nine inclusive policies have a 10 percent While many states, such as California and higher probability of having health insurance Illinois, are leading the way in expanding than do noncitizen Latinos in states with no the rights, protections, and eligibility of inclusive policies.2 their immigrant residents, noncitizens still have lower levels of health insurance than their counterparts who are naturalized. Exhibit 3 Predicted Probabilities of Health Insurance by Citizenship and Race/Ethnicity 0.8 0.75 Predicted Probability of Health Insurance 0.7 0.65 0.6 0.55 0.5 0.45 0 3 6 9 Number of Inclusive State Policies Noncitizen Latino Naturalized Latino UCLA CENTER FOR HEALTH POLICY RESEARCH Author Information Maria-Elena Young is a graduate student researcher at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and a doctoral student in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Steven P. Wallace is professor and chair of the Department of Community Health Sciences and associate director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Suggested Citation Young ME, Wallace SP. 2018. Latino Immigrants Have Higher Rates of Health Insurance in States with Inclusive Policies. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. Endnotes 1 Rodríguez MA, Young ME, Wallace SP. 2015. Creating Conditions to Support Healthy People: State Policies That Affect the Health of Undocumented Immigrants and Their Families. Los Angeles, CA. University of California Global Health Institute. 2 Young MT, Leon-Perez G, Wells CR, Wallace SP. Inclusive State Immigrant Policies and Health Insurance Among Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander, Black, and White Noncitizens in the United States. Ethnicity & Health. Published online Oct 20, 2017. http://www.tandfonline. com/doi/full/10.1080/13557858.2017.1390074. Read this publication online FS2018-5 UCLA CENTER FOR HEALTH POLICY RESEARCH