A new report from the New York City-based Commonwealth Fund finds that, despite making up an increasing portion of the U.S. population and workforce, Hispanics lag far behind non-Hispanics in health insurance coverage.

Prepared by researchers at the Project HOPE Center for Health Affairs in Bethesda, Maryland, the report, "Running in Place: How Job Characteristics, Immigrant Status, and Family Structure Keep Hispanics Uninsured," analyzed multiple factors, including the types of jobs and industries in which Hispanics work, their status as immigrants, and family structure.

"This report sheds light on the multiple burdens faced by Hispanics, especially immigrants with low incomes, who contribute to our nation's economic success but face barriers to sharing in the results on an equal basis with other workers, said Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis. "Recent rulings have pointed to the inequity of the 1996 restrictions on immigrants' access to Medicaid. Similarly, inadequacies in the private employer health insurance system negatively affect Hispanics' and other immigrants ability to obtain coverage."

According to the report, the coverage gap within the Hispanic population is due to a range of factors. These include the fact that Hispanics are more likely than non-Hispanics to be employed in industries and occupations where employer coverage is less likely to be offered; the fact that Hispanic couples are younger and more likely to have only one wage earner in the family than non-Hispanic whites; and the fact that uninsured rates for Hispanic immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for more than 15 years is more than double the rate for non-Hispanic immigrants.

"These findings call for a mix of innovative public and private strategies, such as tax credits to cover a portion of employer and employee premium shares to make employer-based coverage more available and affordable, and expanding Children's Health Insurance Program coverage to low-income parents," said Lisa Duchon, deputy director of the Commonwealth Fund's Task Force on the Future of Health Insurance. "The Hispanic population in the U.S. is very diverse, so multiple approaches might be needed to have an effect on the unacceptably high rate of uninsured."

To download the full report, visit: http://www.commonwealthfund.org/programs/insurance/
schur_running_453.pdf