Spending cuts, immigration, and Medicaid are on the high of the Washington agenda. That local weather offers fertile floor for misinformation and myths to multiply on social networks. A number of the most typical are these surrounding immigrants, Latinos, and Medicaid.
These claims embrace assertions that Latinos who use Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income folks and people with disabilities, “don’t work” and exaggerations of the share of individuals with Medicaid who’re Latinos.
The U.S. Home voted narrowly on Feb. 25 in favor of a finances blueprint that would result in Medicaid cuts of as much as $880 billion over a decade.
Medicaid and the Youngsters’s Well being Insurance coverage Program are a part of the nationwide security web, protecting about 80 million folks. Medicaid enrollment grew below the Inexpensive Care Act and after the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic however then began falling through the ultimate two years of the Biden administration.
Immigrants’ influence on the nation’s well being care system may be overstated in heated political rhetoric. Now-Vice President JD Vance stated on the marketing campaign path final yr that “we’re bankrupting a variety of hospitals by forcing these hospitals to supply look after individuals who don’t have the authorized proper to be in our nation.” PolitiFact rated that assertion “False.”
KFF Well being Information, in partnership with Factchequeado, compiled 5 myths circulating on social media and analyzed them with specialists within the area.
1. Do Latinos who obtain Medicaid work?
Most do. A KFF evaluation of Medicaid information discovered that nearly 67% of Latinos on Medicaid work, “which is the next share of Medicaid adults who’re working in comparison with different racial and ethnic teams,” stated Jennifer Tolbert, deputy director of KFF’s Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured. KFF is a well being info nonprofit that features KFF Well being Information.
“For a lot of low-income folks, the parable is that they aren’t working, though we all know from a variety of information that many individuals work however don’t have entry to inexpensive employer-sponsored insurance coverage,” stated Timothy McBride, co-director on the Middle for Advancing Well being Companies, Coverage and Economics Analysis, a part of the Institute for Public Well being at Washington College in St. Louis.
Neither the Division of Well being and Human Companies Workplace of Minority Well being nor the Facilities for Medicare & Medicaid Companies responded to requests for remark.
2. Are Latinos the biggest group enrolled in Medicaid?
No. White people who find themselves not Hispanic characterize the most important demographic group in Medicaid and CHIP. The packages’ enrollment is 42% non-Hispanic white, 28% Latinos, and 18% non-Hispanic Black, with small percentages of different minorities, in response to a CMS doc.
Latinos’ share of complete Medicaid enrollment “has remained pretty steady for a few years — hovering between 26 and 30% since not less than 2008,” stated Gideon Lukens, analysis and information evaluation director on the well being coverage workforce on the left-leaning Middle on Funds and Coverage Priorities, a analysis group.
In a Feb. 18 weblog put up, Alex Nowrasteh and Jerome Famularo of the libertarian Cato Institute wrote: “The largest delusion within the debate over immigrant welfare use is that noncitizens — which incorporates unlawful immigrants and people lawfully current on varied momentary visas and inexperienced playing cards — disproportionately devour welfare. That isn’t the case.” They included Medicaid within the time period “welfare.”
Though Latinos aren’t the most important group in Medicaid, they’re the demographic group with the best share of individuals receiving Medicaid. There are about 65.2 million Hispanics within the nation, representing 19.5% of the full U.S. inhabitants.
Roughly 31% of the Latino inhabitants is enrolled in Medicaid, partly as a result of employed Latinos usually have jobs that don’t supply inexpensive insurance coverage.
Eligibility for Medicaid relies on elements equivalent to earnings, age, and being pregnant or incapacity standing, and it varies from state to state, stated Kelly Whitener, affiliate professor of apply on the Middle for Youngsters and Households at Georgetown College’s McCourt College of Public Coverage.
“Medicaid eligibility is just not based mostly on race or ethnicity,” Whitener stated.
3. Do most Latinos residing within the nation with out authorized permission use Medicaid?
No. Underneath federal regulation, immigrants missing authorized standing are not eligible for federal Medicaid advantages.
As of January, 14 states and the District of Columbia had used their very own funds to develop protection to kids within the nation with out regard to immigration standing. Of these, seven states and D.C. expanded protection to some adults no matter immigration standing.
The price of offering well being care to those beneficiaries is roofed totally by the states. The federal authorities doesn’t put up a penny.
The federal authorities does pay for Emergency Medicaid, which reimburses hospitals for medical emergencies for individuals who, due to their immigration standing or different elements, don’t usually qualify for this system.
Emergency Medicaid started in 1986 below the Emergency Medical Therapy and Labor Act, signed by President Ronald Reagan, a Republican.
In 2023, Emergency Medicaid accounted for 0.4% of complete Medicaid spending.
Some conservative lawmakers say immigrants within the nation illegally mustn’t get any Medicaid advantages.
“Medicaid is supposed for Americans who want it most — seniors, kids, pregnant ladies, and the disabled,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) stated on social media. “However liberal states are discovering methods to sport the system and make taxpayers cowl healthcare for unlawful immigrants.”
4. Do Latinos keep on Medicaid for many years?
Specialists say there isn’t any evaluation by race or ethnicity of the size of time folks use this system.
“The individuals who keep on Medicaid the longest are individuals who have Medicaid because of a incapacity and who stay with a medical scenario that doesn’t change,” Tolbert stated.
Individuals who use long-term Medicaid assist companies characterize 6% of the full variety of folks in this system.
Many beneficiaries are in this system quickly, McBride stated.
“Some research point out that as many as half of the folks on Medicaid churn off of Medicaid inside a brief time period,” he stated, equivalent to inside a yr.
5. Are Latinos on Medicaid the group that makes use of medical companies probably the most?
Latinos don’t use considerably extra Medicaid companies than others, specialists say. Latinos obtain preventive companies (equivalent to mammograms, pap smears, and colonoscopies), major care and psychological well being care lower than different teams, in response to paperwork from CMS and the Medicaid and CHIP Cost and Entry Fee, a nonpartisan group that gives coverage and information evaluation.
Latinos do account for a disproportionate share of Medicaid labor and supply companies. Latino households and white households every characterize about 35% of Medicaid births, though white folks make up a much bigger share of the general inhabitants.
Whereas Latinos characterize 28% of all Medicaid and CHIP enrollees, they account for 37% of beneficiaries with restricted advantages that cowl solely particular companies.
“They really use well being care companies lower than different teams, due to systemic limitations equivalent to restricted English proficiency and issue navigating the system,” stated Arturo Vargas Bustamante, a professor at UCLA’s Fielding College of Public Well being and the school analysis director on the college’s Latino Coverage and Politics Institute.
Latino folks additionally keep away from utilizing companies out of concern of the “public cost” rule and different insurance policies, Vargas Bustamante stated. President Donald Trump expanded the general public cost coverage and strongly enforced it throughout his first time period, although it was softened below President Joe Biden. The coverage was supposed to make it more durable for immigrants who use Medicaid or welfare packages to acquire inexperienced playing cards or turn into U.S. residents.
“The chilling impact of public cost persists, however latest orders equivalent to mass deportation or the elimination of birthright citizenship have generated their very own chilling results,” Vargas Bustamante added.
