page_title: Healthcare availability for undocumented immigrants in the United States
section_title: Policy context
hierarchical_section_title: Healthcare availability for undocumented immigrants in the United States / Policy context
caption_attribution_description: English: Barack Obama signing the w:Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act at the White House
context_page_description: Having deep roots in immigration, a considerable portion of the United States' populace is foreign-born. Undocumented immigrants make up about 28% of the foreign-born residents. A model analyzing data from 1990-2016 estimates the amount of undocumented immigrants in the US range from 16.7 million to 22.1 million.
  Significant barriers to health care face undocumented immigrants, including low socioeconomic status, difficulty negotiating time off of work, lack of transportation and language
  barriers. Having medical insurance coverage—whether private or through Medicaid—significantly influences the actual utilization of healthcare services.
  Only a handful of municipalities in the United States offer health care coverage for undocumented immigrants, including Los Angeles County's My Health LA program, and San Francisco's Healthy San Francisco.The lack of coverage of undocumented immigrants has shown increases in spread of preventable diseases. The lack of funding of prenatal care in undocumented women has also been calculated in being more expensive in the long run.
caption: President Obama signing the Affordable Care Act in 2010.
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