Survey: 70 percent of foreign-born N.J. adults lack health c
Survey: 70 percent of foreign-born N.J. adults lack health coverage
Published: Sunday, August 28, 2011, 9:00 AM
By Alice Speri
The Star-Ledger
NORTH BERGEN — When her teenage son had a skateboarding accident in March, Yolanda Quintero was worried about more than his safety.
Quintero and her husband, who are naturalized U.S. citizens from Colombia, don’t have health insurance. Neither do their children — 15-year-old David and 10-year-old Stephanie, who has Down syndrome.
David recovered from his skateboarding fall after a night at Palisades Medical Center, near the family’s home in North Bergen. But the bill came to $1,373.25.
"I haven’t paid it yet," said Quintero, 54, showing a final notice she recently received. "I can’t pay it."
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Yolanda Quintero at her house in North Bergen. Her family recently lost its insurance and her daughter Stephanie is no longer getting therapy. Her son recently got into a skateboarding accident and was taken to the ER. Now the family is getting billed for $1,000, which it can't afford.
The Quintero family is among the 34 percent of immigrant children and 70 percent of foreign-born adults living in New Jersey who lack health coverage, according to a statewide study released this summer. The survey — conducted in 2009 by the Rutgers Center for State Health Policy — polled 2,500 households to learn about the health care status of the state’s 1.7 million immigrants.
The study found immigrants — including legal permanent residents and naturalized citizens — are disproportionately uninsured compared to American-born residents. Hispanics and immigrants in the urban, northeastern part of the state rank as the least insured.
"There is a high percentage of people, even with health issues, who don’t get to see a doctor," said Joel Cantor, a Rutgers professor and co-author of the report. "Even in 2014, when national health care reform will set in, there is no guarantee immigrant families will be reached. We have to make adequate investments in primary care and reach out to them."
The survey did not ask respondents to specify their immigration status, though researchers expect most illegal immigrants would have declined to respond. An estimated 550,000 people reside in New Jersey illegally. While doctors do not ask patients their immigration status, many undocumented residents avoid getting care out of fear of deportation, Cantor said.
"There is certainly a fear that it could happen," Cantor said. "Undocumented immigrants delay going into the care system as long as possible, so that when they do, things are usually really bad."
Cantor also pointed to some of the positive findings in the survey, including that immigrants are comparatively healthy. They are less likely to report chronic conditions such as diabetes and rely less on the emergency room than their American-born counterparts. But language difficulties and a confusion with the health care system are especially hard on the foreign-born.
"Even when children and adults are eligible, they are less likely to sign up for services," Cantor said.
Low-income families are eligible for NJ FamilyCare, a federal and state funded health insurance program created to make sure all poor children get health care.
But the Rutgers study found many immigrants are unfamiliar with health care programs and do not use the services, even when they are eligible.
Some immigrants said they were confused by the complex bureaucracy and changing eligibility standards of health care programs.
"The system is so complicated, people don’t understand. We are so frustrated," said Quintero. "People come to me and ask me what to do, and all I can tell them is go apply for charity care."
Quintero was not always uninsured. She said she lost her state-subsidized NJ FamilyCare health coverage last February, after New Jersey reduced the eligibility standards. She said she makes $30 a month over the new limit to qualify for the coverage. Quintero works part-time at a Newark center for parents of special-needs children, but she says she doesn’t get employee insurance and doesn’t make enough to buy a private policy.
Many New Jersey immigrants said not having insurance means they don’t get to see a doctor or buy medicine at all.
Lorenza Florez, a North Bergen resident originally from Peru, said she is in the United States legally but does not have a job. She has never had health insurance. When her 9-year-old daughter, who is autistic, gets sick she may or may not get medicine, Florez said.
"It depends. When I can pay for her medicines, I do," said Florez. "But when I can’t, I just don’t give her any."
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