I love a good Study

Unfortunately, this ain't one.



U.S. Immigrants' Health Costs Far Below Native-Born - Yahoo! News

Excerpting:

Countering the belief that immigrants to the United States use more than their share of health-care resources, a new study finds that just the opposite is true.

Strangely, I've never heard that "belief" articulated. Concerns I have heard raised are about the costs of illegal immigrants.

So what about illegals?

The surveys didn't ask questions about immigration status, however, and Mohanty said it's possible they may have missed some undocumented immigrants who were too afraid to answer questions.

Oh.

Also, when I have heard folks speak to this problem, I have never heard it stated in terms of services used. I've heard it stated in terms of who's paying.

Mohanty's team found that immigrants accounted for an average of $1,582 in health costs per year, compared to $2,005 for the native-born. When the researchers adjusted their figures to take into account possible differences between the two groups due to factors such as age and health status, that gap widened to $1,139 for immigrants and $2,546 for the U.S.-born.

Yes, but who's paying?

The "study" doesn't say.

And what was the purpose of this "study"?

According to Mohanty, the research team launched the study to combat the belief that immigrants take advantage of the American health-care system. "We thought there were a lot of popular misconceptions," she said.

Again: oh.

The study findings seem reasonable, said Dr. Mita Sanghavi Goel, an instructor in medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago who studies immigrant health. However, "there is much more research that needs to be done to understand in more detail where the higher costs for U.S.-born people and lower costs for foreign-born people come from," she said. "We need to look at this data with a finer-toothed comb before the debate is settled."

Well, yeah.