annotated biography amie

3

Poor access to healthcare among immigrants living in the United States

This paper addresses the disparities that exists among immigrants and people affiliated to them in the access to care in the United States. Immigrants are classified as a vulnerable population. They are usually at risk of poor physical, psychological, and social health outcomes and inadequate health care. Their vulnerability arises for intricate interacting factors such as lack of socioeconomic and societal resources, political and social marginalization, environmental obstacles, linguistic differences and legal status (Hacker, 2015). This impedes their access to healthcare. Undocumented immigrations further compounds their situation. Many of these workers are undocumented workers and lack health insurances, despite working on a full time basis.

Immigrants, especially undocumented ones, face discrimination and also live in fear of deportation. This makes them shy away from accessing health care facilities. This underutilization of the healthcare facilities places a formidable risk in their health and that of their children too. It also places the general public’s health at risk. Undocumented immigrants are also not eligible to enroll in Medicare, Medicaid, or CHIP or to purchase coverage through the ACA Marketplaces (McConville et al., 2015). Undocumented immigrants also have limited access to employer-sponsored coverage. As a result, many delay or go without the needed healthcare (McConville et al., 2015).

The health care disparities among immigrants is a topic that is rarely addressed. Most of the research that take places in the healthcare context involves: ethnical and racial differences, gender disparities, sexual identity, and geographical differences. Many of the immigrants suffer in silence with little advocacy on how to improve their situation. Far worse is the lack of access to healthcare faced by their children.

This leads to lifetime healthcare challenges and consequences in their lives. Many of this children are first-generation citizens and others migrated to the US at an age when they were able to make decisions in the case of illegal immigrants. It is imperative that more research in context of access to healthcare among this group is done to inform policies. Having interacted with some of them, it will be socially responsible to dedicate this final research paper to addressing challenges they face in terms of access to healthcare by incorporating the concepts learnt in this course

References

Hacker, K., Anies, M., Folb, B. L., & Zallman, L. (2015). Barriers to health care for undocumented immigrants: a literature review. Risk management and healthcare policy, 8, 175.

McConville, S., Hill, L., Ugo, I., & Hayes, J. (2015). Health coverage and care for undocumented immigrants. Public Policy Institute of California.